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.