About a pound for 2 to 4 people. Boneless, skinless chicken breasts work the best, but you can also use other cuts.

Keep some salt and ground black pepper handy, if you like.

You will also need some oil for cooking the chicken.

• About 12 ounces chicken stock (or one small can)
• About 4-6 ounces white wine
• About 2 tablespoons butter (not margarine)
• 1 tablespoon minced shallots OR 1 teaspoon dried minced shallots

Put chicken stock into a small saucepan. Bring to a low boil on your stove.

Put some oil in a frying pan. Rinse and pat dry chicken pieces and cook in the frying pan over medium-low heat. Pepper the chicken if desired, but do not salt, as salt will dry out the chicken. Cook until done (no longer pink on the inside).

Watch the saucepan while the chicken is cooking. The stock should boil down to almost nothing. At that point in time, add the wine and continue to boil down.

Once the chicken is done, salt to taste if desired. Then take the chicken out of the frying pan and set aside. Don't wash that pan yet!

Pour the contents of the saucepan into the frying pan, taking care not to spill or splatter. Add butter and shallots and heat over medium heat. Stir up any leftover scraps of meat that may be in the pan -- they'll help to flavor the sauce.

Once the sauce is well mixed and boiled down to about half of the volume of the wine you added earlier, you are ready to serve the dish.

Spoon about a quarter of the sauce on top of each chicken piece. If that seems like too much sauce, save the sauce for later.

This dish goes well with hot French bread and green beans almondine. You can use the bread to soak up any extra sauce.