If You Have Chicken, Dijon Mustard, And Heavy Cream, You Have The Start To A Hearty French-Style Dinner
Other than a croissant or butter, it's hard to think of a more perfectly French product than Dijon mustard. The notoriously sharp and pungent mustard originates from Dijon, located in the Burgundy region of France, but the condiment is enjoyed worldwide and is easy to find in most grocery stores in the United States. Commonly used as a sandwich spread, Dijon mustard has so many other wonderful uses, particularly in sauces and braises.
Chicken Gaston Gérard, also called chicken Dijon, is a celebration of French ingredients, including wine, cheese, and of course the world-renown Dijon mustard. Despite the dish's seemingly fancy ingredients, the cooking process is actually simple and relies on a freshly-made stock as a base for the flavorful sauce. In a video posted to TikTok, Christian Clark shows the fairly easy step-by-step process for making chicken Gaston Gérard.
The basic steps are searing the meat and carcass, letting them cook on the stovetop, then making a luxurious sauce from the leftover cooking liquid with cheese, cream, white wine, and Dijon, before finally topping the entire dish with cheese and breadcrumbs and broiling to crispy perfection. Along with chicken, piquant Dijon mustard, and heavy cream, you'll also need Comté, a buttery, melty Alpine-style French cheese (although you could use a similar cheese like Gruyère instead), and a dry white wine, ideally from Burgundy.
Chicken Dijon is a low-effort meal that feels decadent
In the video, Christian Clark begins with a skin-on, deboned chicken broken down into parts, but deboning the chicken isn't strictly necessary for the dish. You can use bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs, which are fairly easy to debone compared to an entire chicken. However the dish does require excess chicken parts like the carcass to be placed underneath the browned chicken pieces for braising.
After the chicken is braised, you should set aside the carcass and other chicken parts you won't be eating and save them to make homemade chicken stock. While the dish is meant to let the flavors of the wine and cheese shine, it is also seasoned with a bit of paprika, and finished off with breadcrumbs broiled on top of the chicken at the very end of cooking.
Chicken Gaston Gérard is ideal served with crusty bread to soak up all the delicious, silky sauce and paired with a light salad of tender lettuces. In terms of a wine pairing, a white wine from Burgundy is a great choice, but if that's not accessible, a similar Chardonnay, or even a Pinot Gris or a Chenin Blanc will do. If you prefer a red wine, a red from Burgundy or a light Pinot Noir would also pair nicely with chicken Dijon.
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