>>Chardonel is a beautiful wine that has a crisp acidity to it.

It's a hybrid grape grown here in the United States that crosses two different varietals, seyval blanc and chardonnay.

And it's called chardonel because it was created at Cornell University.

So this is a lovely dish that I'm going to make that really enhances that crispness, that deliciousness of the chardonel.

First thing we're gonna do is just take some chicken, and I want to season it with a little salt and pepper.

And then I'm gonna put it in a nice hot pan with three tablespoons of olive oil.

(upbeat music) This particular chicken breast is just huge, so we want to cut it in two, but I'm not going to cut it across.

I think what I'm going to do is, because it's so thick, I want to just cut it just straight through the center, almost like I'm butterflying it, but I'm gonna take it all the way through.

That way I'll have two pieces of chicken breast.

And if I'm having dinner for four people, I'll take the one that's underneath, because I know that it's been cut through.

No one else would know.

But at least that way I have everyone having a pretty chicken breast on their plate.

So a little more sauce and pepper, and let's get those in the pan.

(chicken breasts sizzling) So while that chicken cooks, let's make a little bit of sauce.

I have half a stick of butter, so four tablespoons of butter, and I just want to add half of a minced shallot.

This is just a nice little buerre blanc sauce.

What we would do in a regular buerre blanc sauce is drain out those shallots, but I like a nice chunky buerre blanc sauce with this.

What we're gonna do is add the wine, and we're gonna reduce that by about a half.

So it's going to boil, boil, boil, and then we'll add our cream.

Now let's check that chicken.

Yeah, it's getting there.

I want just a little color on it.

Just a little bit.

There we go.

So while this sauce simmers, while the chicken is ready, that's time to just make your rice or your side dish for this.

For this particular dish, potatoes work well, as does rice, but I really think that I like rice the best because it absorbs all of those wonderful flavors within the sauce that goes in the chicken, so I hope you'll like that, too.

(chicken breasts sizzling) That chicken is looking great.

So it's just about to 165 degrees, and my sauce has started to reduce, so it's reducing by half.

Now what I wanna do is add some flavor components to that chicken, a little oregano, 3/4 of a teaspoon, and a little basil, a teaspoon.

These are dried.

Remember, if you're going to use fresh, three times as much.

And then I wanna just turn it over so I can get all of that wonderful herb down inside that oil, because that will really enhance the sauce.

Mm, wonderful.

Now I'm going to just turn off the heat on my sauce because I'm gonna add a little bit of heavy whipping cream, a cup of heavy whipping cream.

Now, if I was making this into the sauce, I'd let it simmer a while, but it's actually going to go into my chicken pan, so that's why I'm not continuing to cook it in my sauce.

Now let's add about a half teaspoon of onion powder.

And for this, I'm just gonna take it right to the oil in the pan.

And you can see it kind of sizzles up.

It almost fries in there.

It's just blooming and getting a great flavor.

And I wanna take three cloves of garlic Be quick with those because they will burn.

And then I wanna add a little red bell pepper, some capers.

This is about 1/4 quarter cup of capers with a teaspoon of caper juice.

Mm.

And now we're gonna add some artichokes.

Now, I like to use just plain artichokes in a can, one can, or you can use a marinated artichoke to give you even more flavor.

But because they're marinated in oil, I think they have a tendency to absorb a lot of that oil, and then the dish for me is a little too oily.

Now, let's just kind of stir that around.

Then we want to add one 10-ounce package of frozen peas.

This is a very colorful vegetable kind of sauce, and it works so well with this chicken.

Now, the next thing I'm gonna do is pour that sauce, that buerre blanc, right over top and we're gonna let this simmer for about six minutes, and then serve it with rice.

Mm.

Be sure your chicken is buried down in that sauce.

And in six minutes, awesome.

So we've simmered for our six minutes.

This looks so delicious.

You can see that the peas have softened.

The chicken has taken on a nice glaze from that sauce.

Oh, this looks wonderful.

Wow, that looks really, really great.

Now what I wanna do is just plate on a little rice.

So I'm gonna take a chicken breast, and then we're gonna get some of this wonderful sauce with all these vegetables and just pour right over the top.

Mm.

Doesn't that look great?

Oh man, I can't wait to try it.

Oh, and the chicken, super tender.

Wow, yeah.

Just almost really fork tender.

(upbeat music) Mm.

Now let's try it with this chardonel.

So the chardonel, super crispy, but at the same time, it's just got this wonderful body about it.

(upbeat music continues) Oh yeah.

So the mellowness in this wine really helps with the cream sauce.

The cream just blends with it so well.

That little tiny bit of brine almost matches up with the acid of the chardonel.

It's just a great, great balance.

(upbeat music continues) (bright music)