Friday, September 30, 2011

Chicken with fruit sauce

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Fruit jam is a wonderful and very versatile pantry item. We all know how lovely jam is on toast or spread on a nice warm corn muffin. My husband puts jam in his oatmeal. I hear some people even eat jam straight out of the jar with a spoon (oh no, I would never do that).

My favorite use for fruit jam - particularly homemade fruit jam - is in this simple chicken with fruit sauce recipe. Use any kind of jam you like. I've paired this chicken recipe with apricot jam, cherry jam, lingonberry jam from Ikea, orange marmalade, kumquat marmalade, and rhubarb jam (pictured above). They're all delicious.

And don't worry that the final dish will be too sweet. You're cutting the sweetness of the jam with acid (white wine, mustard) and salt. The final result is a beautiful sweet-savory sauce that coats the chicken and tastes wonderful all on its own over leftover rice.

I always serve chicken with fruit sauce for Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, when sweet foods grace the table in hopes of a sweet year to come. It's a great do-ahead holiday dish: You can brown the chicken, mix up the sauce and pour it over the half-cooked chicken the night before, then refrigerate the whole thing overnight and stick it into the oven to finish cooking right before dinner. Or bake it through the night before and reheat it on the night of your celebration.


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Chicken with fruit jam
Fruit jam mixes with wine and mustard as the sauce for boneless, skinless chicken breasts and thighs. A great do-ahead main dish for the holidays.
Ingredients
  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper
  • 3 pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs and/or breasts
  • 3 Tbsp grapeseed or canola oil
  • 1/4 cup Dijon mustard
  • 1 1/2 cups white wine
  • 4 garlic cloves, chopped
  • 1 1/2 cups fruit jam, any kind
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray a large roasting pan (or two smaller ones) with cooking spray and set aside.Pour the flour, salt and pepper into a zip-top bag. Close the bag and shake to combine. Add the chicken pieces, close the bag, and shake until all the chicken pieces are coated with the flour mixture.Heat the oil in a large heavy skillet. Shake the excess flour from the chicken pieces and brown them on both sides in the hot oil. You'll have to do this in batches. Carefully remove the browned chicken pieces from the skillet with tongs and lay them in the roasting pan(s) in a single layer.In a bowl, whisk together the mustard, white wine, garlic and jam until well combined. Pour the sauce over the browned chicken pieces. Bake uncovered about 45 minutes, until the chicken is cooked through and the sauce is thickened and bubbling. Serve hot with rice.
Details
Prep time: Cook time: Total time: Yield: 8 servings

3 comments:

Marnely Rodriguez-Murray said...

This looks great and I love the combination of sweet and savory!

Mari Nuñez said...

Wonderful recipe, this would be a perfect holiday plate.

Have a great weekend :)

Bianca @ South Bay Rants n Raves said...

Cool! I used apricot jam in a recent recipe & was wondering what I should do with the rest!

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