Polenta is one of my favorite starches. If you can tolerate corn you will love this dish. If not, you can use the chicken and gravy recipe over rice or pasta. I enjoy my polenta creamy, but you can bake the polenta once chilled and set in the refrigerator, if you desire. Then slice into squares. Instead of using water in the polenta I used some chicken stock from the chicken I boiled.
Ingredients
- 1-1/2 to 1-/3/4 lbs. chicken breast with bones
- 1/2 onion, chopped
- 1 large or 2 small cloves garlic, minced, grated or crushed
- 1 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- 7 cups water
- 1-1/2 teaspoons dried sweet basil
- 1 Tablespoon Worcestershire Sauce (Lea & Perrins is gluten free last I checked)
- 1 Tablespoon butter
- sea salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste
- Approximately 2 Tablespoons white flour (or for gluten free: tapioca flour or cornstarch)
Polenta Ingredients
- 1-1/8 cups uncooked polenta (I use Golden Pheasant)
- 2 Tablespoons butter
- 3/4 teaspoon sea salt
- 4 cups chicken broth from the boiled chicken or water
Instructions
- Remove skin and fat from chicken breast.
- Add to pot and cover with water and above.
- Boil for about 30 minutes or until cooked thoroughly.
- Remove chicken from stock and set aside stock.
- Without burning yourself, pull chicken from bone in strips; set aside; discard bones
- In a medium to large sauce pan, sauté onion and garlic in oil until onion is slightly translucent.
- Add 3 cups chicken stock and cook on medium to medium-high heat for about 10-15 minutes.
- Cook polenta according to instructions. Or use chicken broth instead of water. The instructions for the Golden Pheasant polenta suggests using 1 cup polenta, 4 cups water, 2 tablespoon butter and 1 teaspoon salt. I can cut back the salt to 3/4 teaspoon. I also increase the polenta from 1 cup to 1-1/8 cups for a thicker polenta. You just add salt to the chicken broth and boil. Add polenta and lower heat to low. Cook for 20 minutes and add 2 Tablespoons butter once cooked.
- Once your chicken stock is done, in a small 4 to 8 oz. container with a lid, add flour; add enough water to make it runny. Shake it up and add it to the stock. If you are using a gluten-free thickener you may just add it straight into the pot.
- Stir and allow to thicken.
- Add butter and Worchestershire Sacue; and stir.
- Serve chicken with a little gravy over polenta.
Hints
- To save on calories you can definitely use water for the polenta. On the other hand, if you can handle extra calories additional butter always works well.
- For gluten free recipes, when thickening the gravy lower the temperature to allow for thickening; serve immediately. If you wait to long and it thins out again add more flour or cornstarch.
- Add more flour until desired thickness of gravy is reached.
Love polenta and chicken. Great recipe for the whole family!