Sauce De Provence

Submitted by Akikobay

"This is a sauce that my friend Karen taught me how to cook. It's lovely with shrimp, chicken, or scallops, but it's critical to cook the meat separately from the sauce and them combine it at the last moment. My family will turn themselves inside out to help peel shrimp if I even mention this dish, so I'm always willing to make it. The tomatoes are important in this dish and I would never substitute canned. I don't make this if the tomatoes aren't great. If you choose not to use the Tuaca (or apple brandy), substitute with apple juice concentrate. Serve it over rice for a perfect meal."

 

• Ready In: 1hr
• Ingredients: 10
• Serves: 6

ingredients

• 3 tablespoons butter (unsalted)
• 2 onions (large, cut into strips)
• 2 lbs tomatoes (ripe and flavorful, large dice)
• 1 cup chicken stock (rich, thick stock)
• cayenne (small pinch) (optional)
• 1⁄4 cup apple brandy (preferably tuaca)
• 4 sprigs fresh thyme
• salt and pepper, to taste
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 2 lbs chicken (boneless, in bite sized chunks) or 2 lbs scallops

directions

1. Melt the butter in a heavy bottomed sauce pan and saute the onions carefully until translucent.
2. Add the tomatoes. (I do not peel or seed these, but you should if you prefer to add this step.) Simmer until the tomatoes have melted into the onions.
3. Add the chicken stock. Add a careful pinch of cayenne, if you are using this.
4. Allow to simmer until the sauce thickens. Add the sprigs of thyme. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Do not proceed to the next step until the sauce has thickened.
5. In a separate frying pan, heat the oil until hot, add the meat until it is just cooked. (Do not overcook the shrimp or the scallops!).
6. Mix the shrimp, scallops, or chicken in with the tomatoes and serve over perfectly cooked rice. (We always use the plain version of my Fat Rice.).

Reviews

[kiwidutch]

We liked this. I must admit that this is one of those recipes where the ingredient list delighted me and the end result was a slight dissapointment. I followed the recipe exactly and added cayenne and used apple brandy, and let the sauce get nice and thick, but both DH and I agreed that maybe it was the addition of the shrimp that didn't do it for us. Somehow we felt that it would have been better with pork or chicken, but, as usual, personal preference is everything and what suits one person brilliantly can sometimes suit another rather less. We both liked the sauce by itself, so would definiately make that again, either using my various homemade stocks for vegetarian and non vegetarian versions. Either way I think that our personal preferences are different to what this recipe delivers, so it's definiately NOT a bad recipe, we just would prefer to tweek it for our tastes. I would highly recommend that people make the recipe themselves too and not just make a judgement based on my review because the flavours here are good and factors that influence personal tastes are many and varied. Please see my rating system: 3 lovely stars for a recipe that we will tweek and play with until we get it "just right for us". Thanks !