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Chicken au Poivre

The French classic steak au poivre with peppery, creamy sauce gets a lighter makeover with chicken thighs.
Course Main Course, Poultry
Cuisine French
Servings 4

Ingredients

  • 4 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs (about 2 pounds)
  • kosher salt
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 1 tablespoon black peppercorns
  • 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
  • 1 medium shallot, finely chopped (about 1/3 cup)
  • 1 large clove garlic, minced (about 1-1/2 teaspoons)
  • 1/4 cup Cognac or brandy (see Kitchen Notes)
  • 1/2 cup reduced-sodium chicken stock
  • 3/4 cup heavy cream or half & half (see Kitchen Notes)
  • 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
  • 1 teaspoon dried thyme

Instructions

  • Trim excess fat from chicken thighs and season on both sides with salt. Heat oil in a large, lidded sauté pan over medium-high heat. Cook thighs, skin side down until golden brown, 7 to 8 minutes. Turn thighs over, reduce heat to medium and cook for about 6 minutes. Transfer to a plate (thighs will not be cooked through).
  • While chicken is cooking, coarsely crack your peppercorns. Use a mortar and pestle. You can also put them in a zippered plastic bag, lay it on a cutting board and gently crush the peppercorns with the bottom of a heavy pan or mallet. Don’t grind them in your pepper mill or spice grinder; that will make the pepper too fine to provide coarse, crunchy pepper bites.
  • Melt butter in skillet along with the chicken drippings. Add shallot and garlic to skillet and cook, stirring frequently to avoid browning, for 1 or 2 minutes. Remove pan from heat and add Cognac (this will avoid it catching fire). Return the pan to medium heat and simmer, scraping up any browned bits, until almost evaporated, about 1 minute.
  • Add cream, broth, cracked peppercorns, Dijon mustard and thyme to skillet and bring to a rapid simmer. Return chicken to pan in one layer, skin side up, and cover pan. Simmer for about 10 minutes. Check thighs with an instant read thermometer; they need to be at least 165ºF to be cooked through. If not, continue to cook uncovered for a few minutes and check again. When chicken is done, transfer to a plate and continue to simmer to educe sauce until thick enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon.
  • Plate thighs and spoon peppercorn sauce over them. Serve.

Kitchen Notes

Cognac or brandy? Cognac is the classic ingredient for steak au poivre (and chicken au poivre as well), but most recipes say you can substitute brandy. We keep modestly priced E&J VS Brandy on hand for just such uses.
Cream or half & half? We tend to keep half & half on hand, largely because it’s about half the fat content of heavy cream, and it usually does the job. With the sauce here, cream might be the slightly better choice because it thickens more easily. But again, use what you have on hand or prefer. Misen offers an exhaustive explanation of the differences and when (and when not) to substitute half & half for cream. You can read it here.