Crispy citrus chicken thighs
Kitchen Diaries has a wonderful recipe with cream, fennel, and a mustardy curry paste; I can’t recommend that enough. Recently, however, I’ve worked on of my other obsessions into the mix: butter beans. And cannellini beans; I’ll grudgingly admit they work better.
Ingredients:
Chicken thighs, boned, skin on. Two each.
Butter beans and/or cannellini beans. A couple of cans.
Onions, two of them Leeks would also work
Juice from two lemons
Stock, vegetable or chicken, I’d guess around half a pint.
Flat leaf parsley, rough chopped
Garlic – lots, finely chopped. Seriously, about six cloves, maybe more.
Slowly fry the chicken thighs, skin-down initially, turning a couple of times. This can take about half an hour. You’re looking for golden, gooey, and crispy. They’ll give off a lot of fat, which you can usefully retain.
While that’s going on, roughly dice and slowly fry the onions until beginning to colour. Towards the end, add about half the garlic, and allow it to soften. The garlic should not colour or crisp up.
Add lemon juice and stock, incorporating any caramelised browning, and then add the beans and parsley. Stir this carefully to avoid breaking up the beans, and allow to warm through gently.
When the chicken is done, remove it from the pan, and toss the remaining garlic into the fat and delicious chickeny residue. Fry reasonably hot – this garlic should cook through and colour slightly. De glaze with stock, add the beans and chicken, allow all to heat through, and you’re done. The overall consistency shouldn’t be too wet, so you may need to let it gently simmer and reduce for a few minutes.
This can be made into more of a whole meal by adding courgettes and/or peppers with the initial frying onions, but I prefer to serve it with a tray of roasted vegetables or some seared aubergine slices.
I suspect it could be adapted to vegetarian tastes by substituting roasted parsnips for the chicken; but that would be rank cowardice.