Poulet de Jacques Pepin

One of my favorite celebrity chefs (if not, the favorite since there aren't really any from the Food Network I like) is Jacques Pepin. I have learned a lot from watching his cooking (for one that you can wash mushrooms--he explained if you're going to cook them right away it's fine to rinse them). He used to have a show on PBS on Saturdays called the Essential Pepin, which they still run occasionally. Anytime I've watched any of his shows they've always been both educational and enjoyable.

My sister recently gave me some of his cookbooks (Thanks Lisa!), and there are several recipes he has that I look forward to trying at some point--but most of them seem to involve some planning ahead of time on my part--something I'm not always great at when making a meal. However, the other night when I was trying to decide what to do with a full (bone-in) chicken breast, I flipped through one of his books and happened upon...

So even though I didn't have a full chicken, the recipe was perfect, I had all the ingredients for the Dijon crust and I figured I'd just alter the cook time a little.

"Mustard Crust" ingredients...

Since I was dealing with raw chicken I didn't really get the chance to take a lot of photos of the process, but I will say, other than it being a little messy it was super easy and pretty quick to make. The prep time was probably a total of 10 minutes and the cook time was 35 minutes (it's seared skin-side up in a heavy pan for five minutes, then cooked in the oven on high heat for 30 minutes).

This is what Pepin's looks like in his book:

Pepin's final product

Mine

So it doesn't look quite as good as his, but I have to say it came out cooked perfectly and tasted delicious! I will definitely make this again, and perhaps with the whole chicken if I have company coming over for dinner.

I served the chicken with some brown rice (which crumbled smoked sea salt kale chips on top) and sauteed cabbage with bacon.

It was a very tasty dinner.

This recipe was from Pepin's More Fast Food My Way.