Music and Cats

When Paul and I invited Janeen and Phil to come over for dinner and a movie last night, I thought we’d have a fully functional kitchen by yesterday morning. I’ve been longing to cook a meal for friends in our new kitchen. Last night, that was not to be. I did, however, have the crockpot in which Paul has prepared some of the better meals we’ve had in the past few months. I had the key to Janeen’s apartment, with its small, well-lit kitchen. (This is the kitchen in which, with Janeen’s kind permission, I’ve done just enough preserving and baking over the past few months to stave off the worst of my kitchen withdrawal pains.) And I had a new recipe for chicken stew.

A good stew is just the thing for a wet, stormy night. I selected this recipe from Epicurious because we had all of the ingredients on hand, save for the chicken, wine, stock, orange… well, we had most of the ingredients on hand… and because I knew it would make our house smell wonderful. The original recipe calls for finishing the stew in a 350 degree oven, and I could have done that in Janeen’s kitchen, but I wanted our house to smell good, so I browned everything at Janeen’s, then finished cooking the stew in the crockpot. The crockpot version of this stew may not look like much, but it is delicious: warmly spiced, only slightly sweet. The raisins add tiny bursts of chutney-like chewiness. While the stew was a hit last night at dinner, it, like most stews, tastes even better on the second day.

Chicken, Onion and Raisin Stew
adapted from Epicurious
serves 6 generously

1/2 cup raisins or dried currants
3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
2 1-lb bags frozen pearl onions

4 tablespoons olive oil
12 chicken thighs, with bone and skin (about 4 pounds)
2 14.5-ounce cans diced tomatoes in juice
1 cup canned no-salt-added chicken broth
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 tablespoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon honey
1 teaspoon ground allspice
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper
2 bay leaves
Zest of 1 medium orange, removed with microplane
1 teaspoon dried oregano

Combine raisins and vinegar in small bowl; set aside.

Heat 3 tablespoons oil in large, heavy pot over medium-low heat. Add frozen onions to pot, where they will splatter and then quickly defrost, producing a lot of liquid. Cook onions until liquid boils off, then sauté until golden, about 10 minutes; transfer to bowl of crockpot. Add 1 tablespoon oil to same pot. Working in batches, add chicken thighs to pot and cook over medium-high heat until golden brown, about 5 minutes per side. Add chicken to bowl with onions.

Drain all but a couple of tablespoons of olive oil and chicken fat from pot. Add tomatoes with juices, broth, wine, coriander, honey, allspice, cinnamon and pepper to pot. Bring to a boil, scraping up any browned bits, and boil gently for about 5 minutes to thicken slightly. Stir in bay leaves, orange zest and oregano. Pour sauce over onions and chicken in crockpot bowl.

Set crockpot to ‘high’ and cook 2-3 hours. Chicken will be falling-off-the-bone tender; remove the thigh bones and pull chicken into large chunks/shreds with two forks.

Stir the vinegar-soaked raisins (with any remaining vinegar) into the stew. Serve over brown rice.

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