Flexible Chicken Success

This is a variation on Chicken alba from the NY Times cookbook. It is very flexible ingredient-wise, time and temp-wise, etc. Anyone can make it successfully.

• Ready In: 45 mins
• Serves: 4

Ingredients

• 4 -8  chicken cutlets
• 1⁄4 cup flour
• 1⁄2 teaspoon salt
• 1⁄4 teaspoon pepper
• 6 -12  ounces mushrooms, sliced
• 1  onion, sliced
• 8 -16  ounces mozzarella cheese, sliced or shredded
• 2 -4  tablespoons butter or 2 -4  tablespoons  oil
• 1  teaspoon parsley (optional)
• 1⁄2 teaspoon seasoning salt (optional)
• 1⁄2 teaspoon  sodium-free seasoning (optional)

Directions

1. Pound chicken to even out thickness (can skip this if you hate to do it).
2. Flour chicken.
3. Add salt and pepper to taste.
4. Brown chicken lightly-- don't need to cook all the way.
5. Put chicken in large casserole or roasting pan in one layer.
6. In the same frying pan, melt a little butter or use oil and saute mushrooms until lightly browned. (Can skip this step too.)
7. Place mushrooms on top of chicken.
8. Melt more butter or oil and saute onion until soft. (This is not in the original but I like onions. Leave them out if you don't or they don't like you.)
9. Place onions on top of mushrooms.
10. Add some parsley, seasoning salt or no-salt seasoning, if you want.
11. Cover with cheese.
12. Original recipe uses portabella mushrooms and fontina cheese I think, but mozzarella is fine. Swiss would probably be good too.
13. Bake for about 20 minutes at 375 degrees or so. Longer at a lower temperature or less at higher. Basically you want to cook the chicken, melt the cheese and get some juices in the pan.
14. Essentials are chicken, mushrooms and cheese. This is really good with rice, but noodles might be tasty too.
15. I've also made a version using puff pastry which is pretty and delicious but more work.
16. Another variation I tried used some additional vegetables like peppers, zucchini and tomatoes. It was good, but I like the standard version.