Baked Apricot Chicken, Retro Style
– Jump To Recipe –
– Print Recipe –
Chicken combined with fruit is a stately old warhorse relied upon by almost
every culture at one time or another all over the planet. Apricot chicken in
particular was quite popular in South Africa during the 70’s and 80’. Judging
by the recipe entries in some of the older local cookbooks, the dish made it
even to the high table as one of the recommended elements to be served at
formal banquets. By extension – and knowing South African housewives back then
– formal dinner parties at home (and Sunday lunches) were apparently not spared
either.
I recall that in South Africa we went through something of a fruit and
protein fad during the 80’s. Quite exuberantly I might add. Coronation chicken (usually
with raisins instead of the original dried apricots – which was expensive) was fortunately
only briefly all the rage during that somewhat inept era. More enduring were duck
à l’orange and magrets de canard aux cerises, which were frequent and often
shockingly expensive menu items at fancy restaurants the country over. Pernicious
Sole Veronique managed to cling onto its place on menus longer than some of the
other fruity competitors. Yet apricot chicken was the ultimate survivor as any
relatively competent house wife could prepare it to varying levels of success with
all sorts of variations on the theme. These creations were then served at often
apprehensive family Sunday lunches.
Mom did apricot chicken fairly often at one stage while I was trudging
through high school. To dad’s sometimes vocal chagrin it seldom tasted of
apricot, but frequently of a muddled combination of instant gravy and a tangy
melange of unidentifiable, possibly subtropical fruit. That Mom routinely went
too far with fruit chutney did not aid the often unhappy situation in any
positive way, given that Mrs Balls’ Original and only version were basically
all that was commercially available to the intrepid housewife of those days.
Utterly loyal, I sincerely adored Mom’s apricot chicken whenever it was served and irrespective of whatever fashion Mom decided to put her Sunday chicken’s fortitude (and Dad’s patience) to the apricot test. She invariably prepared her apricot chicken after a difficult week, which was rather often with four children and a demanding farmer for a husband on hand. She would drape her chicken pieces in chutney and transfer them to her hefty Dutch oven, followed by instant brown onion soup powder (or Bisto instant gravy when she was out of brown onion), fruit juice of some sort (never citrus flavour), some cubed chicken stock solution and sometimes a hefty glug of white wine if an open bottle was on hand. When guests were present she would always add a handful of dried apricots. This ensemble then went into a medium hot oven for two to three hours allowing Mom to take it easy – in as much as it was possible with the side dishes still to be prepared and the invariable demands of a clutch of bored children.
Without fail Mom served her apricot chicken with fluffy long grained
rice invariably as pure white as driven snow. You could say whatever you wanted
to about Mom’s culinary skills and creativity, but she was an undisputed
champion white rice cook and took great pride in preparing it very well.
Decades later I still struggle to approach only half as close to her fluffy and
absorbent white rice.
Mom’s apricot chicken was rapturous in whichever fruity guise it was
prepared. Without exception the chicken was fall-off-the-bone tender and very
flavourful. But the real attraction was the gravy that formed during the baking
process. Glistening with rendered chicken fat, infused with savoury chicken
essence and heady with the deep fruitiness of baked chutney, all underscored
with tangy hints from the chutney’s residual brown vinegar.
Now, that glistening, sensually languid gravy took Mom’s soft, fluffy rice
– pure white as driven snow – with indecent obsession. I’d ladle the gravy over
a mound of rice and attentively watch it slowly sink into the rice,
relentlessly enticing and seducing each grain until they surrendered en masse in sublime bliss. Only much,
much later did I make the connection between Mom’s apricot chicken & rice and
the disparagingly trite cliché “orgasm in your mouth”.
Contrary to Mom’s one size fits all approach to apricot chicken, I
prefer my flavours and tastes to be as true as possible to the original idea or
intention, thus my somewhat pernickety and apricot intensive approach here. I
find that Turkish style dried apricots tend to yield a ‘cleaner’ taste and
flavour than ordinary royal dried apricots. However, in a pinch, royal apricots
will do, but you need to increase the quantity used by half as much.
Apricot jam serves to emphasize the sweet fruitiness opposing the
inherent tanginess of the apricot juice and dried apricots. The other frequent
add-ons of onion and garlic are purposely left out in this recipe as they
muddle the purity of the apricot flavour supported by the savouriness of the
chicken. The tad of cream of chicken soup powder serves to thicken the gravy and
‘bulk up’ the flavour profile somewhat.
Originally created as a hearty dish for cold winter’s evenings, I find
that it works well for summer too when the apricot flavour is clear and pronounced
as presented in this recipe. Serve the apricot chicken with Spanish style rice
or a lovely, fluffy couscous. Delicate basmati rice infused with lemon or lime peel also
works well. And keep your side
dishes to a bare minimum? The reverent mouth needs to pay its full, undivided
attention to what you created here.
Serve with a chilled, fruity Viognier or an ice-cold, full bodied Gewürtstraminer.
BAKED APRICOT CHICKEN, RETRO STYLE
– PRINT RECIPE –
|
Recipe yields: 2 Portions |
Preparation time: ± 30 Minutes |
Baking time: 45 Minutes |
Difficulty level: Easy |
Special Equipment Required:
1 x Oven proof sauté pan with lid.
Ingredients:
|
Chicken thigh pieces, medium
large |
4 |
|
Sunflower oil |
15ml |
|
|
|
|
Dried apricots, Turkish
style, cut into strips |
50g |
|
Pure apricot juice / nectar |
200ml |
|
Chicken stock cube solution |
100ml |
|
Smooth apricot jam |
60ml |
|
Cream of chicken soup
powder |
15ml |
|
Salt |
2.5ml |
|
Black pepper, freshly
ground |
2 hefty twists |
|
|
|
|
Optional: |
|
|
Fruity white wine |
100ml |
Method:
- Slowly and thoroughly brown the chicken pieces over medium heat with the oil in the sauté pan, approx. 15 – 18 minutes.
- Remove the chicken and set aside, covered, until needed. Drain the oil from the sauté pan.
- Add all the other ingredients to the pan, except the salt and pepper, and whisk thoroughly to combine.
- Return the chicken pieces; skin side up, to the pan and warm up over medium heat until the contents comes to a simmer.
- Transfer the covered sauté pan to a preheated convection oven at 165°C. Bake for 20 minutes. Remove from the oven, turn the chicken pieces over and stir the liquid through. Return to the oven.
- Bake for another 15 minutes, remove the pan from the oven, turn the chicken pieces again, add the salt and pepper and stir the liquid through. Return to the oven, UNCOVERED, and bake a further 10 – 15 minutes until the sauce thickened significantly.
- Remove from the oven, spoon some of the apricot gravy over the chicken pieces, cover the pan and allow to rest 8 – 10 minutes.
Comments:
- Use peach & mango or peach & apricot fruit juice concentrate (diluted 1:1 with water) if no pure apricot juice or nectar is available.
- I prefer to use skin-on thigh pieces as the small quantity of rendered chicken fat remaining after the pan has been drained post browning; adds to and deepens the savoury chicken flavour. However, each to his own: use skinless thighs if you so prefer. Brown the skinless thighs over medium low heat as they will stick horrendously to the pan if browned at medium heat.
- Pure apricot juice is a seasonal product mostly only available locally from midsummer to middle autumn. Buy 2 – 3 one liter boxes and freeze them as the juice retains its flavour very well during frozen storage. Then you have apricot juice available in the heart of winter (as intended in the original recipe design).
Original Recipe Source:
FAB FOOD, Retro Classics; Editorial director: Diana Hill;
MURDOCH Books; Sydney; 2002; ISBN 1 74045 192 9; p. 63.
© RS Young, 2020
Comments
Post a Comment