Amazing Cinnamon Chicken

In rummaging through the freezer looking for a protein for last night's dinner, I pulled out a bag of what looked like bone-in chicken thighs. From now on I am going to label my freezer bags! The bag turned out to be what I expected, luckily. I was going to have to thaw the thighs and then I figured a wet stovetop braise would be the best cooking method. Maybe I should go with a Mexican flavor, and put the chicken and sauce over rice. Perfect. As I perused the spice cabinet, my fingers fell upon cinnamon. Hmm, I haven't made anything savory with cinnamon for a while, let's see what happens! Cinnamon is a very strong flavor when used for savory dishes, so you need to be careful about how much you use. It goes very well with cumin, and is often used in Mexican dishes. Again, another amazing dinner was turned out in our minimalist kitchen with a few modest ingredients. The new motto of Cucina di Campo: Use good quality ingredients and know how to cook. This chicken recipe is extremely flavorful and quite rich; I am especially proud of not having to use flour or butter to enrich the sauce. Once the chicken is ready, remove it and then put the sauce and veggies in a blender. This will make a very thick sauce without adding any fat or starch...


4 bone-in chicken thighs
3 tbsp olive oil
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp paprika
sea salt
freshly cracked black pepper
1/2 medium white onion, diced
1/2 green bell pepper, diced
1 can diced tomatoes
2 cups hot chicken stock
heavy bottomed pan with tight fitting lid*
splatter guard*
blender*

Wash and dry the chicken thighs. Heat olive oil in pan over medium high flame until almost smoking. Add chicken to hot oil and season top with salt and pepper. Cover with splatter guard and cook 5 minutes or until the underside of the chicken is browned. Turn chicken over, season with salt, pepper, cinnamon, cumin, oregano and paprika. Replace splatter guard and continue to brown chicken. Turn the chicken over again so that the spiced side is in the oil and cook another 5 minutes. The spices will cook into the chicken and infuse the oil. There should be plenty of oil in the pan - add more if it looks too dry.

Add the onions, peppers and tomatoes. Add hot stock to cover. Bring to a boil, cover and reduce to a simmer. Cook on low for 1 hour, stirring occasionally. Place the lid slightly askew and allow the sauce to reduce for 15-20 minutes.

At this point, the longer you cook the chicken and sauce the better as the flavors continue to develop and get extremely rich. There is a point of diminishing returns however, as the chicken will begin to disintegrate after about two and a half hours. Just turn the pan to very low and wait until you are ready to eat.

Fifteen minutes before you are ready to eat start the Jasmine rice (1 cup dry rice added to 2.5 cups salted, boiling water. Simmer 15 minutes, let stand 5 minutes). Take the chicken out of the sauce, and cover on a plate. Carefully add the sauce to the blender and process until almost smooth (some small chunks are fine). Return the sauce to the pan. Add the chicken back to the pan with any juices on the plate. Cover and keep warm over medium low flame until rice is done.

Spoon chicken and sauce over Jasmine rice.



* I like to use a dutch oven from Le Creuset - the best. I also use a stainless steel sauce pan from AllClad. The point is to use a pan that will retain heat all the way up the sides - Le Creuset is wonderful because it is cast iron; AllClad has an aluminum core that goes all the way up the sides. A splatter guard is a must when browning or frying. Is there anything less fun than cleaning up your kitchen after splattering grease everywhere? Trust me, get a splatter guard. The blender works fine for finishing the sauce in this recipe, but you can also use an immersion blender (stick blender) if you have one. If you do, I probably didn't need to tell you...