Chicken and Caper Cream Sauce

Once upon a time, I pretended to make dinner with stuff "on hand" and the only thing needed was capers. That was about a year and a half ago. We still have the damn capers which we've only used once before using them again tonight. However, thanks to Pinterest, I came across a simple chicken recipe that involved capers. The pros of the recipe outweighed the potential con of capers, plus it would help get rid of them. As I made dinner (backdoor brag*: yes, I made this by myself with only some supervision from Will but no assistance), I realized the reason the capers probably didn't taste so appealing the first time we tried them was because we ate them straight from the jar, caper juice and all. However, this recipe had you rinse and drain them before putting them into your sauce, thus eliminating the slimy salt juice taste.

Overall, this was a pretty simple chicken dinner that used some flavors we don't always turn to such as dill and lemon. The way the chicken was cooked resulted in a really moist chicken breast that we then cut up over the pasta. We chose to serve the chicken with a whole wheat fusili leftover from a meal a couple weeks ago. It would probably go well with a side grain or pasta, but I know I really enjoyed the sauce with the pasta. The one thing I would change when making it again would be to pour the sauce into the pasta to mix the flavors before serving with the chicken. I made a little too much pasta and so it resulted in some bland pasta after eating all the chicken and tasty sauce!

Cooking Notes: I adapted this recipe for two people sharing one chicken breast, as opposed to the full 4 chicken breasts. I free-sprinkled the spices on so these are my estimations of what I used; I also didn't have lemon pepper so I used ground black pepper and sprinkled lemon juice on the chicken while it was cooking. I did however make the full serving of sauce because I really really like sauce :)

Chicken and Caper Cream Sauce (adapted from Lou Lou at Ask Chefs; serves 2)
1 large chicken breast
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp dried dill
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
1 tsp lemon juice
2 tbsp butter
1/2 cup milk (the recipe calls for whipping cream, but I used flour to thicken the milk instead)
1 tbsp flour
1 tbsp capers, drained and rinsed (draining and rinsing are key!!)
2 oz feta cheese (optional)
4 oz. fusili pasta

Season chicken with salt, garlic powder, dill, and black pepper. Begin to melt the butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Get water boiling for pasta. Once the butter has melted, turn the heat up to medium high and add the chicken breast, cooking for 5 minutes, turning frequently. The water will probably be boiling at this point so go ahead and start the pasta.

After first 5 minutes, sprinkle lemon juice on both sides of chicken breast, lower heat to medium-low, cover and cook for another 6-8 minutes. Continue flipping and checking for doneness. The pasta will probably be finished at this point-cover and remove from heat. When chicken is done, remove it from the skillet and keep it covered on a plate.

Add flour to the skillet, leaving heat on either medium-low or low. Mix flour in with melted butter and other "juices" in skillet. Once mixed, add milk and stir until sauce has formed, about 3 minutes. Just before serving, toss in capers and feta cheese to combine with sauce. Drain pasta and serve with chicken and sauce, garnishing with fresh parsley!

Recipe (from Pinterest): AskChefs: Chicken Breasts in Caper Cream Sauce

*Hope someone out there caught the 30 Rock reference!