Friday, September 28, 2012

Crispy Braised Chicken Thighs with Black Bean Tapenade (GK)

Marinated Chicken
  • 1/2 cup salt
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1 orange, sliced
  • 4 or 5 sprigs fresh thyme
  • 1/2 onion, chopped
  • 5 garlic cloves, peeled and smashed with the back of a knife
  • 1 tablespoon black peppercorns, toasted
  • 1 tablespoon coriander seeds, toasted
  • 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
  • 3 pounds chicken thighs with skin (about 8), bone-in
Bring all the ingredients and 6 cups of water to a boil.  Then brine the thighs overnight.

Draining a bit on paper towels.

Sauce
  • 2 tablespoon blended oil(half vegetable, half olive oil) [Just now realizing that the recipe called for the same two lines in the list of ingredients for 1 tablespoon blended oil.  In its second use in my execution, I said "Screw it.  I'm just using olive oil."]
  • 1/2 onion, chopped
  • 4 garlic cloves, chopped
  • 1 quart chicken broth
  • 1/2 cup white wine
  • 2 tablespoons butter

Mise en place.


Browned chicken.


Browning the onion and garlic.

I realize here that I messed up by omitting the step of reducing the white wine (or in my current case, dry vermouth).  I brought it and the chicken to a boil in the same sauce pan.

Pour the liquid and aromatics all over the chicken, cover tightly with foil and braise in the oven for 2 hours at 275 degrees F.


Crisping the skin.

Reducing the strained liquid until it coats the back of a spoon.  Then enrich the sauce with butter.

Black Bean Tapenade
  • 1/2 cup nicoise olives, pitted and roughly chopped [JP's Whole Foods didn't have any and I wasn't willing to make another trip for this dish before cooking it since I had delayed enough.]
  • 1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
  • 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
  • 1 tablespoon fermented black beans
  • 1 tablespoon chiffonade [Basically one rolls up broad-leafed herbs and cut super-thin ribbons of them.] of fresh mint
  • 1/2 teaspoon sambal
  • 1/2 teaspoon honey
None of these things are prepped.  I figured I would have enough time considering two hours of braising to do the prep during that period of time.




The dish was really damn good.  True perfection the night I cooked it.  Very moist, flavorful, rich.  Nice to see a sauce get so silky with the addition of butter.
I was worried about prepping a side (I rarely make side dishes), but the posole I made recently didn't stand on it own and proved an interesting complement.

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