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Chicken Thighs with Roasted Figs & Grapes
Bring the hostages home.
Chicken Thighs with Roasted Figs & Grapes
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Foodie Lit
Visions of the past intrude upon Katherine MacLeod’s day. She hears conversations and sees people and places. More than that, she feels the emotions of those she sees, which intrude on her dreams and awake times. What is she seeing? Piecing together her dreams and visions, her research and help from her friends, she puts together a story of the Underground Railroad that operated near her house, while connecting the past with the present.
With few neighbors, main character Charlotte and her family needed to be self-reliant, fully prepared for the seasons and to live a life that, like our own, has its difficulties and its joys. Barbara Bull has expertly developed characters who themselves were slaves or who helped these individuals to freedom. Come By Here is a story worth reading.
Chicken Thighs with Roasted Figs and Grapes
Serves 2-3
¾ cup chicken broth
1 tablespoon potato starch
2 tablespoons grainy Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 teaspoon kosher salt
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
¼ teaspoon chili flakes
2bone-in skin on chicken thighs, patted dry
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 small onions, each cut into 8 wedges or thickly sliced
¼ cp white wine
6 large or 8 medium whole figs
1/4 pound red seedless grapes
1 teaspoon dried thyme or 6 fresh thyme sprigs
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Arrange an oven rack 6” from broiler. Preheat oven to 400F (200C).
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In a bowl, whisk chicken broth and cornstarch until dissolved, then whisk in mustard, silan, honey, lemon juice, salt pepper and chili flakes.
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Season chicken generously with salt. Heat oil in large (12”) heavy skillet over medium high heat. Add chicken, skin side down. Brown until skin is crisp and rendered, 5 minutes. Flip and cook 1 additional minute. Remove to plate and cover with foil.
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Add onions to skillet and brown until undersides are golden, 2-3 minutes. Flip and cook 1 additional minute. Remove to plate, 3-4 minutes.
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Add wine to skillet and cook, stirring and scraping up bits from pan until wine reduces by half, 2 minutes.
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Add broth mixture, bring to a boil, reduce heat to medium and cook until mixture thickens and reduces slightly, 3-4 minutes.
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Return chicken and onions to pan. Nestle figs and grapes among chicken pieces. Scatter thyme sprigs around skillet. Spoon some sauce over chicken, cover with foil and cook in oven until sauce begins to thicken and figs and grapes begin to soften, 20 minutes.
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Remove from oven, uncover, return to oven and roast until figs and grapes are slightly caramelized and chicken skin is crisped and deep mahogany in color, 15 minutes.
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Season with more salt and pepper to taste. Garnish with thyme or sprigs.
Suggestions
Lessen the sugar: Omit honey or substitute 1 teaspoon Stevia.
Rosh Hashanah: When it is traditional to use apples and honey, add 2 small apples, unpeeled, cored and cut into quarters
Add other veggies: Zucchini or carrots cut into 1/2 inch slices
#GlutenFree #Poultry #Figs #Grapes
Taken from Shabbat. Adeena Sussman
I love reading cookbooks. A friend lent me Adeena Sussman’s new cookbook, Shabbat, filled with luscious recipes and photographs. I usually find one or two recipes I plan to make in a cookbook, but so many recipes called to me in this collection. The first one I made was this sweet and savory chicken thighs, fabulously flavored by figs and grapes, enhanced by roasting with the chicken. Such a delicious sauce! I changed the corn starch to potato starch to make it gluten free, added a red bell pepper, and had to use smaller processed figs, as I couldn’t find large fresh figs. Silan, date syrup, is not available in my grocery store and I left it out, and I found that the fruit and honey were sweet enough for the recipe. Filled with many Middle Eastern and traditional Jewish recipes, this cookbook’s recipes are fabulous enough for everybody.
