Fall Cooking – Maple Apple Mustard Chicken w/ Maple Sea Salt Polenta Fries

Who doesn’t love New England Fall cooking? Apples, cranberries, cloves…and MAPLE SYRUP! This time of year everything has maple syrup in it…and that is not a bad thing!

So, when I received a sample of Vermont Creamery’s Sea Salt & Maple Cultured Butter, I could not have been more excited! (I also received a sample of the Vanilla Crème Fraîche which I made a ridiculous ganache with, but that is a story for another time.) The first step in figuring out what to make with the butter was to not eat it out of the package, which may have been the hardest part of the dinner! This stuff is good. Besides being a ridiculous high quality, creamy, delicious butter it has sea salt…and maple syrup!

For some reason, I had it in my head I was going to make polenta. I have never made polenta, and I am not even sure I had eaten it before today, but by gosh I was going to make it…with maple syrup! I was also determined to take it one step further and make them into polenta fries…because to be honest, the thought of the texture of polenta does not appeal to me all that much. I also found this recipe on Pinterest, which spurred the idea for the chicken with the addition of , you guessed it…maple syrup! This is definitely a dinner I will repeat. The chicken was juicy and flavorful, and the polenta fries with crispy and salty sweet.

Are you following me on Pinterest yet? What is your favorite Fall ingredient?

Maple Apple Mustard Chicken Recipe

Ingredients

• 2 bone-in, skin on, split chicken breasts
• Salt
• 1 medium sweet apple (skin & seeds removed, chopped)
• 1/4 cup maple syrup
• 1/4 cup brown mustard
• 1/4 cup sweet white wine (I used a Reisling)

Directions

• Rinse and dry chicken and place in your baking dish
• Sprinkle with desired amount of salt
• Put your apple, mustard, maple syrup and wine in a food processor or blender and blend until almost smooth
• Pour mustard mixture over the chicken
• Put the chicken in the fridge to marinate for at least an hour (or overnight)
• Remove chicken from the fridge 30 minutes before cooking to bring the chicken to room temperature
• Preheat oven to 375 degrees
• Place chicken in the oven and cook until chicken is cooked through, about 1 hour
• Remove chicken from oven and allow to sit for 10 minutes before serving

Maple Sea Salt Polenta Fries

Ingredients

• 1 cup milk (any type except skim)
• 2 cups chicken broth
• 2 Tbsp Vermont Butter and Cheese Company Maple & Sea Salt Butter
• 1 3/4 cup Polenta or Corn Meal
• 2 Tbsp Maple Syrup (divided)
• Sea Salt to taste

Directions

• Put milk, broth and butter in a heavy sauce pan over medium heat
• Bring to a boil, stirring frequently
• When liquid begins to boil, add polenta or corn meal and reduce heat to medium-low
• Continuously stir until polenta separates from the side of the pan
• Stir in 1 Tbsp maple syrup
• Spread polenta out on a baking sheet
• Drizzle the remaining 1 Tbsp maple syrup over the polenta
• Sprinkle the polenta with the desired amount of salt
• Place polenta in the fridge until cool
• Remove polenta from fridge and cut into fry shaped sticks
• Preheat oven to 375 degrees
• Spray fries with cooking spray, or brush with olive oil on both sides
• Bake for an hour, or until polenta begins to brown
• Plate and serve with your favorite dipping sauce

Disclaimer: I received samples of Vermont Creamery products to review. As always, all opinions are my own. Click here to for a list of locations that sell these delicious dairy products.