Pan sauce adds extra flavor, flair to chicken entree

If you’ve got a beginning or budding cook in your life, “How to Boil Water,” could be the ticket.

Recipes cover the basics, but there are tips, glossary descriptions, troubleshooting advice and wisdom on giving dishes a personal touch.

Yes, some of the information is painfully basic: how to brew coffee, cooking noodles, scrambling eggs. But there’s room to advance into more sophisticated dishes, and there are enough recipes to keep taste buds reared on wordly takeout meals interested. Those cooks might turn to Shrimp Salad with Mango and Lime, Chicken Curry, Hot and Sour Soup, or Pan-Fried Salmon with Cucumber-Radish Salad.

Here’s a recipe from the book:

Chicken with Mustard Pan Sauce

From “How to Boil Water” from the Food Network Kitchens

4 boneless chicken breast halves, with skin (about 2 pounds)

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

1/2 cup white wine or dry white vermouth

1 1/2 cups low-sodium chicken broth (about 3/4 small can)

1 tablespoon all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons water

2 tablespoons whole-grain mustard

1 tablespoon unsalted butter

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat. Pat chicken dry with paper towels and season all over with salt and black pepper. Add the oil to the hot pan and swirl to evenly coat. Lay the chicken pieces in the pan, skin side down, and cook without moving them until the skin crisps and browns, about 5 minutes.

Flip and cook for another 3 minutes. Transfer chicken to a baking dish, skin side up, and bake until cooked through, about 10 minutes.

Pour the wine into the hot skillet. Use a wooden spoon to scrape up the browned pits in the bottom of the pan. Boil until almost all the wine evaporates and it gets a little syrupy, about 3 minutes. Add the broth and bring to a boil.

Mix the flour and water together to make a thin paste (that’s a “slurry”). Then whisk the slurry and the mustard into the broth and boil until the sauce thickens, 1 to 2 minutes more. Remove pan from the heat. Swirl in the butter, if using, to give the sauce a little richness; season with salt and pepper to taste. Add any collected juice from the chicken to the sauce. Put the chicken on a plate, pour the sauce on top and serve.

Make it your own: Add a sprig or two of chopped fresh herbs, like thyme, sage or rosemary, with the broth.

Add 2 to 4 tablespoons heavy cream instead of butter for a cream sauce; then skip the slurry and just boil until thick.

You can always cook pork chops the same way.

Pan sauce wisdom: A major reward of sautéing is a pan sauce – it’s easy, tasty, fancy-looking, and impressive, with minimal cleanup and a lot of room for improvisation. Instead of white wine use red or substitute a smaller amount of lemon juice or wine vinegar.

Yield: 4 servings

Approximate nutrition per serving: 375 calories, 15 grams fat (4 grams saturated, 2.5 grams carbohydrate, 134 milligrams cholesterol, less than 1 gram dietary fiber, 622 milligrams sodium.