Melissa d'Arabian's 4 Step Chicken

I saw a rerun of "The Next Food Network Star," and it inspired me to give the winner's 4 Step Chicken a try. We loved it. Here is the recipe copied and pasted from here.

Ingredients:
4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves, sliced in half crossways (butterflied, cut all the way through)
1 teaspoon dried thyme, plus 1 small bunch fresh thyme, leaves chopped
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
4 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 red onion, thinly sliced
1/4 cup white wine, optional
1 cup chicken broth
3 lemons, juiced

Directions:
Season chicken with dried thyme and salt and pepper. Heat a large saute pan over medium heat and add the oil. Dredge the chicken in flour, add to the hot oil and saute until cooked through. Set chicken aside to rest on plate tented with foil.

In same saute pan, over low heat, add onions and fresh thyme and cook until aromatic.

In a measuring cup, measure out wine, if using, and broth, and add the lemon juice. Turn the heat up to high, and deglaze the pan with the broth mixture until starting to reduce.

Remove the pan from the heat and finish the sauce by whisking in butter. Season with salt and pepper, to taste.

Place a bed of cooked spinach on a serving platter, top with the chicken. Spoon the sauce over the chicken and serve.


If you read reviews of the recipe from the link above, some people said it was better when they cut back on the lemon. I used all 3 lemons, and yes it was tangy, and very flavorful. I loved the tastes of the lemon and red onion battling against each other. I didn't use the white wine, and I only used fresh thyme. We didn't have spinach on hand, but I bet the bed of cooked spinach would go well with the lemony sauce. (She includes the recipe for the bed of spinach as well--I didn't copy and paste that part in, so click on the link for that.)