Chicken breast with cranberry jus

Winters give you so much room to cook such exciting things – mushrooms, sweet potatoes and so many olives. Oh yumm. So, I cooked up a hefty dinner with all the shenanigans – chicken breast marinated with cranberry juice baked with olives, mushrooms, served with sweet potato mash, sauteed mushrooms, and cranberry jus.

For the Chicken –

Ingredients

• Chicken breast – 1 whole
• Garlic cloves – 2 to 3
• Ginger – 1/2 inch
• Olive oil – 2 tbsp + to cook
• Cranberry juice for marination – 5 tbsp
• Olives, an assortment of black and green pitted olives – a handful
• Oregano seasoning – to taste
• Mushrooms – 1 cup halved + 1 cup sliced
• Salt – to taste

Method

• Roughly chop garlic and ginger
• Add the olive oil, cranberry juice, ginger, garlic, and seasoning, mix together. Add to the chicken and set aside for at least two hours.
• Meanwhile, chop the mushrooms in quarters and olives in half.
• Also, slice the mushrooms, blanch in the microwave for a minute. Stir fry and set aside to assemble later.
• Pre-heat the oven to 300 degrees for 10 minutes.
• Grease a baking tray with olive oil, place the chicken along with the marinade, add mushrooms and olives. Generously pour some more olive oil and bake for 20 minutes at 250 degrees.

For the Sweet Potato Mash

Ingredients

• Sweet potato – 1 big
• Butter – 4 tbsp
• Oil to grease the pan
• Salt and pepper – to taste

Method

• Peel the sweet potato, roughly cut into pieces and boil for 15 minutes on medium flame.
• Drain the water and transfer to a well-greased pan
• Whisk vigorously while adding butter and cook on a medium-low flame and whisk until the potatoes come together as a smooth mash. Add more butter if needed.

For the Cranberry Jus

Ingredients

• Cranberry Juice – 2 cups
• Fresh orange slice – 1 whole

Method

• Add the cranberry juice and orange slice to a pan, cook on medium flame till the juice caramelizes and reduces to less than half.

To put the plate together – make a bed of sweet potato mash, add the chicken on top with the baked mushrooms and olives, add the side of sauteed mushrooms and top with cranberry jus.
Woof, winter dinner is gold. What are all of you hogging on this season?