Cookaholics Bulletin Board

I made this last night, and it was awful. For the record, the first time I try a recipe, I make it exactly a written, although CI/CC usually require some "upping" on the seasoning front. And as a general rule, I think CI/CC's recipes are better, but not this one. It calls for chicken breasts on the bone cooked for 20 minutes, which really is too long, and then adding brandy, cream, mustard and vinegar. It was dry, and not particularly "appley."

The one I have used and everyone likes, is for a whole chicken legs, cooked in the oven for 30 minutes and Calvados rather than plain brandy. Just better. This time CI failed.

I've never had chicken normandy. I normally associate apples with pork, but brandy and chicken sound equally delicious I'd really like to try it; what recipe should be my leaping off point? Obviously not the CI one...

This is Elise Bauer's (Simply Recipes) recipe. Much better:

http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/chicken_normandy/

When I was in culinary school my final practical team members and I were convinced our "mystery cart" would point towards all things Normandy. (I love food from this region.) We couldn't have been more wrong...the cart was totally geared towards Sicily, and it took us a while to figure that out.

I'm going to check out the recipe you posted KSS.

Amy

You forget that CI designs recipes for consumers without sources for sophisticated ingredients. Calvados just is not available in rural Vermont or in rural Wisconsin. Don't you remember the gnudi made without semolina; they claimed that break-down was a break-through.

Tim

Tim,

Sometimes they were brilliant when reducing an ethnic recipe to commonly available ingredients (pad Thai). Often, they ended up with a palatable dish which didn't taste anything like the original. Lately, of course, they've stopped testing the recipes entirely if they don't appear on ATK, so it's a total crapshoot.

Correction: It was a Cook's Country recipe, not CI. Either way, give it a skip.

I made a "version" of this recipe tonight, and it was fantastic. Thanks KSS!

Glad you enjoyed it. I've made versions of it over the years, but the only disappointing one was CC's. Sad commentary.