Cooking Outside the Box: Chicken with Pears and Prunes

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Chicken with Pears and Prunes

Yes, I heard, the term "prunes" is out, "dried plums" is in. Either way, I finally made yummy moist and tasty chicken in Israel! I've been in a little chicken rut since moving to Israel. It might be the chicken or it might be me, but it keeps coming out tough and not very tasty. I went a little overboard this time. But it was delicious and pretty easy.

I think a lot about food. I think about an ingredient I have at home or a delicious dish I once had (in this case Hannah's "Chicken with Tomatoes and Black Olives") and let my mind wander and string together ingredients I have available or am in the mood for. I woke up in the mood to do some real cooking. I was in the mood for something sweet and I've been wanting to try cooking with some prunes I bought. This is how it goes:

1. Mix flour with spices like salt, pepper, paprika, garlic powder, and a little curry.
2. Coat chicken pieces in flour. In this case I used 6 skin-on thighs and legs.

3. Lightly brown chicken pieces in a large pot. (I did this in two rounds.) Then remove chicken and lower heat until you get the onions in the pan.

4. Use wine or other liquid to "de-glaze" the pot: Add enough wine to barely cover the pan, then scrape up all the tasty brown chicken flavor stuck in the pot.

5. Add to the pot chunks of 2 onions (I used one red and one yellow/sweet onion) followed by 4 quartered pears. You can dip the pears in flour if you have extra flour mixture.

6. Raise the heat and add olives, chicken, 14 prunes, and about 1 liter or 4 cups of a liquid of your choice, or enough to almost cover the ingredients. (Fresh or canned tomatoes - optional.) I used liquid I had drained from canned tomatoes last week, plus water. I also added 4 "baby bella" mushrooms I had left from making lentil soup.