Cider Glazed Chicken with Horseraddish Apple and Pear Salad

This amazingly light yet filling dinner came from an article I was reading in Cooking Light about a cider glazed chicken breast with rice and stuff. My issue with the recipe is that if you're going to use cider as a deglazing liquid, don't hide the apple, make it shine! So then I started thinking about what I like to eat with apples - horseradish, pears, and cheese (but this is dairy free so no cheese). So with this recipe, the chicken is browned in the pan, splashed with cognac (yup... Brandy also goes well with apple), and then the cider and horseradish is reduced to make a sauce to finish off the chicken.

Here's what you need:
4 Chicken cutlets
1 cup apple cider
1/3 cup cognac
1 tablespoon grated horseradish
2 teaspoons dijon mustard
1 pear
1 apple

First, take 4 chicken cutlets and make sure they're an even thickness (I prefer between 1/4 and 1/2 inch for quick pan cooking). Season your chicken, light on the salt if you're concerned with heart health, and begin heating a non-stick pan over medium-high heat with a little olive oil. Once the pan is lightly smoking, place the chicken cutlet in and don't touch it for at least 3 minutes (my chicken cutlets were pretty thin so I cooked them 3 minutes a side but you might need to cook them longer depending on thickness). Turn and cook on the opposite side and then when it's ready, take the pan off the heat and pour in the cognac.

**IMPORTANT - If you've never flambeed anything, there are a few things you need to be extremely careful of with this. If you pour the cognac in the pan from the bottle and the pan is too hot, the pan can ignite and sent the flame right to the bottle blowing up the bottle in your hand (that's not good). Aside from that, make sure you pour in the cognac in off the heat and swirl to cook out the alcohol. Then remove the chicken and place in a foil tented plate.

Next, pour in the cider, mustard, and horseradish and cook on medium heat until the mixture is thick and syrupy. Once it's reduced, put the chicken in the pan and reduce the heat to low to warm the chicken in the sauce.

As far as the salad, chop up the pear and apple and warm them in a small sauce pan very briefly. You don't want them to caramelize, just warm and soften slightly. Place them at the bottom of the plate and then put the chicken on top with a nice pour of sauce.