Chicken and apples braised in hard cider
Due to our hectic schedules, we've been subsisting for an interminable length of time on boxed mac and cheese and take-out. A momentary reprieve allowed us to put together a lovely, home-cooked meal. David had gotten a bottle of hard cider from the corner store, and I was eager to try out my as-yet-untouched Spanish cook book. A recipe for chicken in hard cider seemed like an obvious choice for our first foray into the cookbook, as it combined many of our favourites: chicken, apples and liquor. This recipe hails from the region of Asturias in Spain, renowned for its cider and cider consumption. Apparently, at least according to the book, an average Asturian male is purported to consume some 10 liters of cider a day. Cheers to that.
Recipe
adapted from The New Spanish TableServes 21 chicken, quarteredsea salt and black pepper3 - 4 tbsp olive oil2 slices bacon or 1 slice pancetta, chopped1 large onion, cut in half, sliced1 small bay leaf1 cup dry hard apple cider1 tbsp unsalted butter1 large green apple, peeled, cored and sliced1 tbsp apple cider vinegar2 tbsp creamPreheat oven to 375 F. Rub the chicken generously with salt and pepper and let stand for 15 minutes. Heat 1 tbsp of olive oil in a flameproof casserole over medium-high heat. Brown the chicken all over, adding a little more olive oil if necessary. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the chicken to a bowl. Add the bacon and cook, stirring, until it begins to render its fat, 2 minutes. Transfer bacon to bowl with chicken. Add 2 more tbsp olive oil and the onions to the casserole and cook until they begin to soften, about 5 minutes. Add 2 tbsp of cider, reduce the heat to low, cover and cook until onions are very soft, about 10 minutes. Add the remaining cider to the pan and boil over high heat until it is reduced by one-third. Return the chicken to the casserole, placing it skin side up, stir in the bacon and tuck in the bay leaf. The liquid should come no more than halfway up the chicken. Bake the chicken, uncovered, until it is almost tender, about 40 minutes.While the chicken is baking, melt the butter in a skillet over medium heat. Add the apple and cook, stirring, until it softens, about 5 minutes. Remove the casserole from the oven and carefully transfer the pieces of chicken to a plate. Add the apples and the vinegar to the cooking liquid and return the chicken to the casserole, skin side up. Increase the oven temperature to 425 F and bake, uncovered, until it is well-browned and the cooking liquid is reduce, about 15 minutes. Serve at once.
Musings
A few notes on preparation: After the chicken was done, David de-glazed the pan used for the apple with the juices from the chicken, added a couple tbsp of cream and simmered it a bit to make a sauce. We used Samuel Smith's hard cider. The original recipe called for thighs actually, but we used the chicken we had on hand.This dish has obvious parallels to the pork tenderloin with apple, which has always been a favourite. Upon first bite, it was, in a word, heavenly. Everything that we had been missing over the last couple of weeks was present in that one bite. The cider leant the chicken a wonderful apple flavour, even stronger than in the pork dish because it had braised for so long in it. The saltiness of the bacon, sweetness of the apples against the creaminess of the sauce was a wonderful trifecta. Definitely a dish worth sampling again.