Next Dutch Oven Specialty
Thanks to reasonable recent success moving a home oven recipe to the Dutch Oven arena, I am inspired to try another favorite over charcoal. My old cookbook calls it “Chicken Baked in Sour Cream”. My niece thinks they should’ve added “and Mushroom Soup”, but I’ve learned to modify that ingredient to suit her taste sufficiently.
This does wind up being on the salty side. You may want to fish out the bacon before you serve it, or bypass the dried beef on the plate. On the other hand, if sodium isn’t an issue in your guest’s diet, it’s pretty tasty. Both ingredients are helpful during cooking for tenderizing and flavoring the chicken breast.
Chicken Baked in Sour Cream
Serves 6
6 chicken breasts, skin and bone removed
1/2 jar dried beef
6 slices bacon
4 oz ± sour cream
1/2 ± can cream of mushroom soup
Line the Dutch Oven and lid with foil, taking care to not punch any holes in it for the juices to leak out of. Line the bottom of the Dutch Oven with the dried beef. Wrap each chicken breast in a slice of bacon (at least where one wrap covers the main meat of the breast) and lay on top of dried beef. In a bowl, mix up the sour cream and cream of mushroom soup, and smear over the chicken breasts. Place lid on top of Dutch oven. Bake at 350-ish for an hour-ish. or 300-ish for 1.5 hours. Or 250-ish for 2 hours. You get the idea. Just make sure the chicken breasts are really done by cutting one open and making sure the meat is opaque and cuts easily using a thermometer to check that the internal temperature reaches at least 165 degrees.
If someone balks at mushroom soup, a reasonable alternative is Cream of Celery or Cream of Chicken.
