Chicken Scallopini with a twist!

(This is The Pioneer Woman's luscious pic that totally enticed me to cook this meal, over & over again)

In case you hadn't heard I am a HUGE fan of The Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond. I love her down to earth country ranch style cooking, and her easy step by step photos are mouth wateringly gorgeous. Last year a friend an I were cooking our way through her website The Pioneer Woman - Chicken Scallopine which was alot of fun, I was out at my parents so it was easy as the recipes are usually quite generous in servings, so it feed 3 with leftovers usually or if my brother and his partner came over it fed us all to a T.

This is a very simple recipe to cook, and really really yummy, but I confess I am a mushy (mushroom) lover so that had a big influence on my votes to this one up.

By all means halve this recipe if only feeding 3-4 people.

Chicken Scallopini with a Twist

500g Packet of Linguini
4-6 Chicken Breasts
Salt & Pepper to season
1 Cup Flour
2 Tbsp Olive Oil
4 Tbsp Butter
300g (approx 2-3 cups) Mushrooms - sliced
1 cup Dry White Wine
Chicken Stock (optional)
1 whole Lemon
1/2 cup Thickened Cream (can use light or cooking cream)
2 Tbsp Parsley - chopped
Parmesan Cheese - to serve

Put a large pot of salted water on the stove top with the heat on high to get to the boil for the pasta.

Next slice and de-giblet your chicken breasts into thinner pieces and using a mallet or rolling pin to tenderise the breast between 2 plastic sheets or freezer bags, another option is to place them into ziplock bags.

Once you have your thin tenderised chicken breasts, place flour, salt and pepper into a freezer (plastic) bag, place one piece of chicken at a time into the bag and shake well, coating the chicken well. When all the chicken is coated, place them onto a dinner plate and into the fridge for half an hour for best results.

Heat a large frypan on stove top with the olive oil and butter in the plan, once melted/heated place the chicken into the fry pan and brown the chicken well on each side, this will only take approx 3-4 minutes each side as the chicken is very thin.  Remove from the pan and place the cooked chicken breasts onto a seperate plate preferably with a couple of pieces of paper towel, to assist in draining the oil off the chicken.

The butter and oil will be brown, toss in the sliced mushrooms, stir them around coating them in butter. Once all coated nicely in the butter and oil, pour in the cup of white wine (this can be substituted with chicken stock).  Next squeeze half a lemon into the pan over the mushrooms. Make sure its a juicy one, if not then squeeze in the other half, I find microwaving a lemon for 10 seconds always helps to make it pliable.

Stir the mushrooms gently so that you dont break them up.

Reduce the heat and stir through the thickened (or heavy) cream.  Crack some pepper and add a pinch of salt. Then chop a generous amount of fresh parsley and stir into the mushroom sauce. Your kitchen should smell totally delish right about now!

To plate up, place your linguine on the plate, the chicken on top to the side and then cover the dish with the mushrooms and lucious sauce, make sure you cover the pasta in plenty of sauce. Sprinkle the top of chicken with Parmesan cheese to make it extra special. Serve to your eager beavers!