Tonight was pan-roasted chicken with root vegetables. Primarily 3-4 bone-in, skin on chicken breasts, halved, salt & peppered and cooked in oil. Fat drained, the parsnips and carrots were then cooked in the resulting fond in a wine, chicken broth & rosemary mixture.
Normally a pan cooked meat can use the developed fond for a light and quick pan sauce by simply adding chicken broth, perhaps some wine and an herb/spice or two. Tonight the recepie called for doing that but then adding the vegetables to the sauce and simmering covered until most of the liquid was gone. This forced the vegetables to carry the bulk of the flavor and be the star attraction at dinner instead of it being the meat and pan sauce.
While the carrots and parsnips were good, I much prefer the meat to be the star attraction. Sure enough, when I poured a bit of the accumulated sauce from the vegetable platter over the meat, the chicken went from mediocre to wonderful.
This is not to say that pan sauces and gravy’s are only for meat. I like gravy on my mashed potatoes to the exclusion of my meatloaf. However the main meat course, if there is one, better have the option of getting some sauce if desired.
BTW, parsnips are pretty good. This was only the second time cooking with them and my complaints about the lack of sauce for the meat aside, there were no carrots or parsnips left.
