Tarragon Chicken -- The Soup That Says the Body Needs Care

Late January, and the vaccines are here — not here in my arm but here in the world, and the world's having them is the first real hope in ten months. Mama is eligible as a seventy-eight-year-old with Alzheimer's. I have registered her. The registration was done online, at the desk Robert built, with the methodical persistence of a librarian who knows how to navigate a bureaucracy and who considers navigating a bureaucracy on behalf of her mother to be the most important library research she has ever conducted.

Robert received his vaccine this week — the first dose, at a pharmacy, administered by a pharmacist named DeShawn who was, Robert said, "exactly the kind of young man you want holding a needle: calm, competent, and clearly delighted to be giving people hope in a syringe." Robert's description made me laugh, which is notable because I have not laughed easily in months, and the laughing was the vaccine's first side effect: the restoration of the belief that something might get better.

Carrie called from Emory, excited about a new semester that includes a course on translation theory — the theory of how meaning moves between languages, which is also the theory of how meaning moves between people, between generations, between a mother and a daughter, between a woman with Alzheimer's and the family that translates her fragments into sentences. Carrie does not know she is studying her own family. Or perhaps she does, and the studying is the understanding, and the understanding is the love.

I made chicken noodle soup — the healing soup, the vaccine-day soup, the soup that says the body needs care after the body has been asked to fight. The soup was simple — chicken, noodles, carrots, celery, the broth I keep frozen in quarts like currency — and the simplicity was the medicine, and the medicine was the food, and the food was the same food it has always been: warm, honest, enough.

The soup I made that afternoon was the plainest thing in the world, and that was exactly right — but when I thought about what to share here, I kept coming back to tarragon, that gentle herb that smells like something between a garden and a pharmacy, clean and restorative and faintly miraculous. Tarragon Chicken is what I make when someone in this house has been asked to be brave, because it is the kind of dish that tends to them without calling attention to itself: quiet, warm, honest about what it is. After a week of registrations and pharmacists named DeShawn and daughters studying translation without knowing they’re studying love, this was the recipe that felt like the right translation of all of it.

Tarragon Chicken

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 30 minutes | Total Time: 40 minutes | Servings: 4

Ingredients

• 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (about 6 oz each)
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more to taste
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 medium shallot, finely minced
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 cup dry white wine
• 3/4 cup low-sodium chicken broth
• 1/3 cup heavy cream
• 2 tablespoons fresh tarragon leaves, roughly chopped (or 1 teaspoon dried)
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
• 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

Instructions

1. Season the chicken. Pat the chicken breasts dry with paper towels. Season both sides evenly with salt and pepper.
2. Sear. Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat until shimmering. Add chicken breasts and sear without moving them for 5–6 minutes, until a deep golden crust forms. Flip and cook another 5–6 minutes. Transfer to a plate and tent loosely with foil.
3. Build the sauce. Reduce heat to medium. Add shallot to the same skillet and cook, stirring, for 2 minutes until softened. Add garlic and cook 30 seconds more. Pour in the white wine, scraping up any browned bits from the bottom of the pan. Let it reduce by half, about 2 minutes.
4. Finish the sauce. Add chicken broth and bring to a gentle simmer. Stir in the heavy cream, Dijon mustard, and dried tarragon (if using fresh, add at the end). Simmer 4–5 minutes until the sauce thickens slightly.
5. Return the chicken. Nestle the chicken breasts back into the skillet. Reduce heat to low, cover, and cook 5–7 minutes until the chicken is cooked through (internal temperature of 165°F). If using fresh tarragon, stir it in now along with the butter. Swirl to melt and combine.
6. Serve. Plate the chicken and spoon the sauce generously over the top. Serve with egg noodles, mashed potatoes, or crusty bread to catch every bit of the sauce.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 340 | Protein: 38g | Fat: 17g | Carbs: 4g | Fiber: 0g | Sodium: 380mg