I tried a new recipe tonight and it's a WINNER! Arrange 4-6 chicken breasts in a baking dish. Mix 1 cup sour cream, 1/2 cup dijon mustard & 1/4 cup white wine and pour over chicken. Cover dish with aluminum foil. Bake at 350 X 40 mins., then uncover and bake 10 mins. more. Served with pasta and broccoli tonight. YUM! (Next time I'll add some mushrooms to the chicken for unneeded oomph -- we just like mushrooms.) Pat

Last night was my experiment. I fully preheated the oven to 500 deg. I prepared my chicken - rinse, dry, salt, pepper, into a #7 Griswold pan - and let it sit at room temp for a good half hour while the oven preheated. Put it in the oven on the second lowest rack. That's all there is to it, right? When the breast was a beautiful golden brown I checked the temp. The breast was already at 180. I poked at the thighs a bit and found areas as cool as 140. Clearly it needed more time in the oven despite the breast already being overcooked. After another fifteen minutes or so (I wasn't paying attention to the clock during any of this) the thighs were just barely approaching 165 so I pulled it out of the oven. Immediately after setting it on my counter I noticed that while the top of the drumsticks were nice and brown like the breast, the majority was a flabby pale beige. Same for the entire thighs and most of the wings. While carving the chicken I took a bite of the breast. Predictably it was dry, but my wife seemed to enjoy it nonetheless. I chose to eat the dark meat and sadly peeled off the skin. It was flavorful and extremely juicy if somewhat undercooked for my taste. In hindsight I know I made one mistake. I put the chicken in head first, whereas the instructions make a point of saying legs should face the back. Given this, I will give the method another shot even though being in the back didn't help the wings out any. On a positive note, I'm convinced of the small-pan tip. The oven didn't smoke at all, and the splatters on the wall were minimal. Who'da thunk, "place in pan and throw in oven" could yield such varied results.

Thanks everyone. Yes, I used an oven thermometer. It's an old one (the standard metal frame) and I have no reason to think it's off, since setting the oven 25 degrees lower seems to work almost all the time.... and NOT setting it lower tends to burn/brown the food too much (though I haven't tried that for a long while....). In addition, I always put the rack in the middle of the oven (unless the recipe says to do otherwise), then put the thermometer in the middle of the rack on which I'll put the pan, and wait until it registers at (or very close to) the temp I want. And, yes, the breast was cold when it went into the oven -- I made the herb paste in the morning, spread it on, covered with foil, and put it in the fridge. I wanted to go for a bike ride and didn't want to cut that short to come back and prepare the turkey; all I'd need to do is stick it in the oven. No doubt, letting it sit at room temp for about an hour would have made a difference in cooking time. I bought it fresh, not frozen, and kept it in the fridge until cooking time. (I removed the foil except for the last 30 minutes.) So, next time I'll let it sit for about an hour at room temp before cooking, then let it reach 165 degrees before removing it from the oven. This was Ina's recipe and tried and true so I'm going on the assumption I did something differently. It wasn't overly dry.... a little on the dry side. The flavor is great and I would definitely make it again, but not for company until I get this right! I also made the dill potatoes (posted here before), and brussel sprouts blanched then tossed w/ EVOO and drizzled with finely chopped walnuts then roasted in the oven. Hubby (who does most of the cooking since he's retired and I am still working) said "This is really good, Hon." .... then, after dinner, "Good job!" All's well that ends well! :-) Thank you all so much!! What a great forum.

I made this the other night and it was huge hit!!! My daughter who is picky, loved it. Thanks for sharing