Sunday, August 22, 2010

Spicy Braised Tomato Marjoram Chicken Thighs

I've posted about the recipe with cherry tomatoes and marjoram but it was a whole chicken, flattened, butterflied or spatchcocked, in another posting.  But now I've adapted the recipe to use this braising technique I tried from Cooks Illustrated ("Rethinking Braised Chicken") and I like it even better.

You need a good 12" skillet that you can throw into the oven to make this. If your skillet isn't 12" then don't use as many thighs.

Ingredients

1 C. white wine
1/2 C. chicken broth
4 cloves of garlic minced or pressed
Red pepper flakes (1.5 tsp if you're the cautious sort)
24-32 oz of cherry, plum or grape tomatoes.  (I usually buy two 16 oz packages)
2 T. of fresh chopped marjoram (I never bother to chop it, just use the leaves whole) -- save the stems.
8 chicken thighs
1/4 C. olive oil
Salt & Pepper

Mix together tomatoes, marjoram, garlic, red pepper flakes with the olive oil.

Get your pan nice and hot with a little oil in it.  Brown the thighs, skin-side down, for about 8 minutes or until they're nice and golden brown.  Turn them over and do them for 5 minutes on the other side. 

Remove the thighs and pour out most of the rendered fat (you might want to save it, schmaltz is good stuff). 

Add the wine and broth to the pan and let it boil a bit, loosen up any chicken bits sticking  to the pan. 

Put the thighs in the pan, skin-side up again.  Cover them with the tomato mixture. 

Cook at 375' for about 30 minutes. The tops of the thighs should be nicely browned and the tomatoes blistered.  You might need to blast it at 425' for 10 minutes towards the end if the tomatoes aren't quite done enough.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love this recipe and have made it several times. I have to buy the marjoram tho' as I don't have it growing like you do!

Patty said...

Wanted to stop by and thank you for sharing the Primal Non-Dairy Creamer recipe. I hope it comes in handy for some other folks!

BTW, this recipe looks great!