Chicken Florentine in a White Wine Sauce

MarkNS's Note:

An easy meal to impress guests. Very savoury and heavy on the garlic. I wooed my wife with this one.

• Total Time: 2 hrs
• Prep Time: 1 hrs
• Cook Time: 1 hrs

Ingredients:

Servings: 4

• 8 boneless skinless chicken breasts (2 per person) or 8 you can use chicken thighs (2 per person)
• spinach , stems removed and leaves ripped approximately in half (I use two packs for about 8 breasts)
• 1 head garlic , minced (This is a garlic lovers meal you can reduce that amount if you're unsure of your guests' affection f)
• lots butter
• bread (I prefer cracker) or cracker crumb (I prefer cracker)
• 750 ml of medium dry white wine
• flour
• sugar
• salt

Directions:

1. Sauté ½ the garlic in 2-3 tablespoons butter (this amount is a guess…but be generous with it) in a frying pan until softened (do NOT brown it!). Add spinach and cook, stirring frequently until spinach is softened and quite shrunken. Remove from heat and allow to cool.
2. Pound breasts flat (the thinner the better). and lightly salt them. Roll spinach/garlic mixture up in the breasts then lightly coat them in crumbs. Place seam side down in a deep baking dish. Bake uncovered in a 300 degree oven while you make the sauce.
3. Sauce:Melt a lot of butter (once again… be generous and use more than you think you should) in the same frying pan the spinach was sautéed inches Add the remaining garlic and sauté…(do NOT brown it!). Whisk in sufficient flour to make a thick roux…do NOT brown the roux! Whisk in the wine and bring to boil whisking constantly. After the alcohol has had a chance to evaporate and as the sauce thickens, add sugar to taste but the sauce should remain slightly bitter as it will lose this bitterness in the oven. Once thickened, pour the sauce over the chicken breasts.
4. Bake the whole thing, uncovered in a 350 degree oven until you want to eat. 1 hour is usually plenty but this meal is designed to be prepared at your convenience and lowering the temperature and allowing it to sit will not hurt it.
5. Presentation: I recommend removing the breasts from the sauce onto a cutting board to cool slightly (if cut while too hot they will disintegrate -- I found this out the hard way). Then, slice them into about 1 cm slices so that each slice is a little circle of chicken surrounding the spinach. Press white rice into a small bowl and invert it in the centre of the plate, remove the bowl so a uniform hemispheric mound of rice remains. Arrange the chicken slices in a circle around the rice. Drizzle some sauce over the chicken and rice. Serve remaining sauce in a gravy boat or small pitcher. Remember to keep the sauce warm and don’t dilly-dally while cutting -- get it to to the table hot!