Marion's Whiskey Chicken
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This distinctive chicken dish comes from our world-traveling friend, Marion and comes by way of County Tyrone, Northern Ireland and Alaska. She says, "Most of the alcohol escapes during the cooking process, but enough of the flavours remain to give the sauce its distinctive taste."

A bit more about Marion:

I live in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, and have been over here for the past 10 years.  I grew up in Alaska and lived in the States for 20 years before moving over here to do a foreign exchange at the University, and then fell in love with the place and stayed on.

My sister and her 6-year-old son have just decided to move over to stay with me so that she can complete her Master's degree over here, so it's a bit of a change from the single life for me (not that I mind)!  I have a dog and two cats, and my hobbies include wine-making, cookery, gardening and entertaining. Glad you enjoyed the recipe anyway; we have it now and again, especially whenever my parents send smoked salmon over from back home.

What you need:

• approx. 1 1/2 cups chopped onion
• 1 cup mushrooms chopped fine
• cup mushrooms, chopped coarsely
• 4 chicken breasts, skinned
• 1 cup irish whiskey
  (I like to use Bushmills or Jameson's)
• 300 ml creme fraiche / sour cream
• olive oil
• 2 Tablespoons black pepper (I know it's a lot)
• 2/3 cup chicken broth

What you do:

1. Heat olive oil with black pepper.
2. Use a meat tenderiser to pound chicken into flattish escalopes (pounding it flat is so much fun!) and sear chicken either side in the peppery oil.
3. It may help to add a little of the pepper to the oil in between each chicken breast, just to stop it all from sticking to the first one.   Remove chicken breasts and place in flat baking dish.
4. Pour whiskey over them, to marinate.
5. Add onions and finely chopped mushrooms to oil and sautee until mushrooms start to reduce.  Then add remaining mushrooms, sautee briefly, and add chicken broth.
6. Once mixture starts to simmer, pour whiskey from baking dish into the mix, and add sour cream.
7. Stir often until mixture begins to reduce, and pour over chicken in the baking dish.
8. Bake at 375 for 30 minutes (until chicken is cooked through and sauce has thickened).  Goes beautifully with roast potatoes.

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