lemony chicken with prunes and green olives

ugh. it's been a long week of trying to get stuff done at work and at home. it's prevented me from blogging.

last weekend cavin and i made it out to the grocery store and i happened to see organic prunes. ah! there was a recipe in molly steven's all about braising: lemony chicken with prunes and green olives. i've been wanting to make this for a while, but i would always forget to pick up prunes.

so we picked up the prunes, now all i needed were the olives. hmmm. the recipe calls for lucques, and i thought about ordering them from igourmet, but as usual, i never got around to doing it.

oh! what's this? an olive bar? lemme see what they have here...cerignola? i guess this will have to do!

with the chicken legs, prunes, and green olives in hand, i was ready to make the dish. except...oh. what's this here? the recipe says i have to plump the prunes. for 8-12 hours! aie. i guess we're having this for dinner another night.

so sunday afternoon i researched about plumping prunes (dried plums). apparently you can plump them by pouring boiling water over them, and letting them absorb the liquid for about 2 hours, and then you can use them. molly stevens mentions that this deteriorates the quality of the prunes so she prefers to soak them for a longer period of time in non-boiling liquid. and since i had the time, why not soak them longer?

you can also plump the prunes in liquids other than water, and the prunes will absorb the flavor of that liquid. (don't use chicken stock though, because the prunes will be sitting out on the counter and you don't want the stock to go bad.) since i knew the recipe called for white wine or vermouth, i decided to go that route. i plumped the prunes in vermouth (to cover) for about 20 hours. monday afternoon the prunes were a little bit puffed up, and when i tasted it, it had a mellow vermouthy flavor to them. great!

the recipe is pretty simple.

braised lemony chicken with prunes and green olives
3.5-4 lbs chicken leg quarters (with skins and bones)
1/4 cup prunes, plumped up
1/3 cup green olives, pitted (lucques, picholine, or cerignola, which is what i used)
2-4 whole cloves
4-5 strips of lemon peel (removed with a veggie peeler)
4 cloves garlic, smashed
1 cup dry white wine or dry vermouth (if you plumped the prunes in wine, use this wine as well)
1/4 cup white wine vinegar
flour
olive oil
salt & pepper

cut the chicken leg quarters into two pieces: separating the thigh from the leg. s&p the chicken pieces, then light coat with the flour.

heat oil in a large, shallow skillet on med-high. brown chicken pieces in batches, starting with the skin side down, until golden brown. remove and place on a plate. continue until all chicken is nicely browned.

pour off oil in skillet, but keep the browned bits. add garlic, lemon peel, cloves, saute for 30 seconds, then add the vinegar and wine to deglaze. cook for 1-2 minutes, then add the chicken pieces back in a single layer (it will be a snug fit), as well as any chicken juice that accumulated on the plate. add the prunes and olives on top, then cover with a heavy lid. cook for 35-45 minutes, basting the chicken with the liquid occasionally, as well as turning the chicken pieces once half way through. (if using a thermometer, cook until the chicken hits 180F.) salt & pepper afterwards to taste.


i'm a big fan of this recipe. the chicken was moist and flavored with lemon and a hint of cloves. the sauce ends up being thickened from the flour used to coat the chicken in the beginning. molly stevens says the consistency should be like "a thin vinagrette." the prunes tasted amazing to me (and i didn't even use the best prunes out there!), partly i think, because i plumped them in vermouth, and not water. and they complimented the sauce and the olives quite well.



earlier in the day i made potato muffins so we served the chicken with the muffins. i won't go into the details of the muffins because they didn't turn out exactly how i wanted (i think i added too much potato, but how am i supposed to measure 10.5 oz potatoes without a scale?) but well enough to eat. once i figure out the proportions properly and test out the recipe again, i'll post it on here.