Cinnamon Chicken

adapted from this recipe on Cooks.com
Girl is a HUGE Little House on the Prairie fan (OK, well I am, too). In some of the later episodes (the ones that we’ve been watching lately), Laura makes “Cinnamon Chicken” for her husband, Almanzo. I had never heard (aside from the show) of Cinnamon Chicken, so I decided to do some searching and see what I came up with up. This recipe looked promising, so I decided to give it a shot, but I changed it pretty significantly from the original. It turned out really well and all of us liked it quite a bit. The cinnamon flavor worked surprisingly well with chicken. The original recipe didn’t have a sauce, but when I saw all of the beautiful little browned bits in the pan, I decided that I just had to make a reduction. I mean, seriously…just look at this:

Could you pour that down the sink? Not me!
Cinnamon Chicken, inspired by Laura Ingalls Wilder
makes 2 very large or 4 small servings
For chicken:
2 large boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper (white or black – your choice)
1/4 cup flour
1/4 tsp turmeric*
1 tsp cinnamon
3 egg whites
1 cup bread crumbs
canola or olive oil (for frying)
For sauce:
1/2 of a small shallot, finely minced (2 – 3 Tbsp)
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 cup chicken stock
Cut each chicken breast into two equal pieces. Gently pound each chicken piece to an even thickness. Mix the salt, pepper and flour and spread on a plate. In a small bowl, whisk the turmeric and cinnamon into the egg whites. Dredge the chicken pieces in the flour, then dip them in the egg whites and coat them with the bread crumbs.
In a large, heavy-bottomed skillet large enough to hold the chicken pieces in a single layer, heat the oil over medium heat. Lay the pieces in the skillet and cook chicken until it is nicely browned on both sides and cooked through, turning once. Adjust heat if necessary to keep chicken from burning. Add slightly more oil, if necessary.
When chicken is done, remove it from the skillet (reserve oil and crusty bits in the skillet) and set aside. If there is a lot of oil in the skillet, pour it off until you are left with about 2 tsp. Re-heat skillet over medium-high heat. Add shallots and cook 2 – 3 minutes until softened. Carefully add the wine and simmer, whisking to incorporate the browned bits in the bottom of the pan, until the mixture is very thick and almost all of the wine has bubbled away. Add stock and simmer, whisking occasionally, until the sauce has thickened to the desired consistency. Pour over chicken or serve on the side.
*It’s worth the extra effort to find the turmeric, if you don’t already have some in your spice cabinet. It adds a little spicy flavor to this dish (without adding “heat”) to balance the flavors and keep the chicken from being too cinnamon-y sweet. Turmeric can be used in lots of other Indian and Mexican dishes and has been credited in a recent UCLA study with possibly helping to prevent amyloid plaques in the brain (which have been tied to Alzheimer’s Disease.)