Chicken Baked with Tomatoes and Lemon

This is a post about chicken baked with tomatoes and lemon zest, as a simpler and speedier version of the lamb baked with orzo, tomatos and preserved lemon from Malouf. Bear with me.

Once upon a time, I stumbled upon a jar of preserved lemons at Trader Joe's. Intrigued, I put them in my basket. The Jersey cashier asked me what on earth a preserved lemon was and how I used them in cooking. This was to become a theme, although at the time, my response was something like: I'm not really sure but I'll figure it out.

Those preserved lemons sat in my pantry for about a year, taunting me, and aggravating certain people who couldn't understand why I had so much food in my cupboards for just me. Then one week I picked up Malouf as the inspiration for my weekly recipe vote post and discovered multiple dishes calling for preserved lemons.

The risotto with zucchini, prawns, and preserved lemon won that particular recipe vote, but I made the lamb baked with orzo the same week and both dishes have stuck with me ever since. They are both rather simple to execute but extremely flavorful and great for dinner alone or with friends. The problem is...preserved lemons aren't something most of my friends have heard of, much less a cupboard or  fridge staple. They are easy to make yourself, but you need about one months' notice, so preserved lemons aren't really a spur-of-the-moment ingredient. I was given a jar of them by a very kind co-worker, but I've run through the jar, and in the meantime my homemade preserved lemons are still curing. Trader Joe's stopped carrying them and I can assure you that they are relatively difficult to find. I've been to every grocery store around Solana Beach in San Diego, and most grocery stores in San Francisco, and despite several very helpful store clerks, I haven't seen preserved lemons for sale anywhere outside a specialty Middle Eastern store (or online). You can make "quick" preserved lemons, but they are not the same.

So. As Caleb and I sometimes like to do, we decided to do a test. One batch of orzo with preserved lemon, one batch with lemon zest, blinded to him. The very first time I made this dish from Malouf, I used boneless skinless chicken thighs instead of lamb. Chicken thighs are easier to find, require substantially less time to trim into bite-sized pieces, and require less time to become tender. The final dish is not as decadently rich as the dish is with lamb, but it's still quite good. For this preserved lemon vs lemon zest hypothesis, we opted for using the chicken thighs.

The punchline is this: Caleb was certain the pot with the lemon zest was the one with the preserved lemon pieces. It tasted a little brighter and more lemon-y than the pot with the actual preserved lemons used in the stew. The preserved lemon stew definitely had lemon flavor, but it was more subdued. The difference was noticeable, yet both versions were delicious. Given that discovery, it seemed like converting Malouf's lamb and preserved lemon dish into a more accessible chicken and lemon dish was the only option.

Trim the thighs of any excess fat and cut them into large bite-sized pieces (or leave them whole, but account for some extra cooking time). Salt and pepper the pieces, then brown them in a wide Dutch oven in batches.

Once the chicken thigh pieces are browned, cook the onion, garlic, ground coriander, and olive oil together in the same Dutch oven until the onion is softened and the garlic loses a bit of its bite, about 20 minutes. Now, we'll add the paprika, honey, and the zest of one large lemon (regular or Meyer will do). Stir everything together, then add in the tomato sauce, chili flakes, chicken stock, cinnamon sticks, and the juice of the large lemon. Add the browned chicken to the pot, bring everything to a boil, then cover the pot and tuck it into the oven for about 45 minutes.

At this point, you have a choice to make. Do you want to bake the orzo together with the meat and sauce, or separately to serve alongside the stew. The dish will be much richer, the orzo more tender, if you bake the orzo in the sauce. However,  you will lose all of the actual sauce to the absorptive pasta, and you won't have as much control over your pasta to meat ratio. Because of this, and because our interest was in the flavor of the tomato sauce, we cooked the orzo separately, right at the end of the stew being ready, about 1-2 minutes less than the package directions.

If you decide to cook the orzo with the stew, you would add it now, after the first 45 minutes of cooking the chicken in the oven. Add the orzo, stir it around to distribute it well, keep the lid off the pot, and bake for another 25 minutes.

If you decide to cook the orzo and stew separately, get the pasta water heating to cook the pasta after the stew has been in the oven for 30 minutes. After 45 minutes, take the lid off the Dutch oven and let the stew cook another 25 minutes, at which point the liquid should be reduced to half/two-thirds the original amount and the chicken should be very tender. Meanwhile, the pasta water should have come to a boil and you should have cooked the orzo when there was about 8 minutes remaining of stew cooking time.

In the last minutes of cooking the stew, add some petit peas, baby greens, or ribboned kale/chard/radicchio to the stew and give everything a stir. Alternatively, blanch some broccoli florets and add those to the stew. If you can find it, halloumi fried in strips and placed on top each serving is a great choice. However, crumbling up some fresh feta and adding it to the stew is almost as delicious.

Chicken Baked with Tomatoes and Lemon

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Course: Main Course

Cuisine: Middle Eastern

Prep Time: 20 minutes minutes

Cook Time: 1 hour hour 35 minutes minutes

Total Time: 1 hour hour 55 minutes minutes

Servings: 4

Ingredients

• 2 teaspoons olive oil
• 3.5-4 lb boneless, skinless chicken thighs trimmed and cut into 1-½ inch pieces
• Kosher salt
• Black pepper
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 2 large onions diced
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 teaspoon freshly-ground coriander
• Kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon sweet paprika
• zest of one large lemon
• 1 tablespoon honey
• ½-1 teaspoon chili flakes or 2 large chilis, destemmed, deseeded, and diced
• 2 cans (454 grams each) tomato purée or whole tomatoes don't used diced tomatoes
• ½-1 liter 2-4 cups* chicken stock
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• juice of one large lemon
• 454 grams orzo pasta
• 150 grams haloumi cheese sliced or feta crumbled
• Optional: baby greens, blanched broccoli, or green salad to serve alongside

Instructions

• Drizzle olive oil into a wide Dutch oven set over medium (4/10 heat). Season the chicken pieces with a sprinkle of the kosher salt and pepper, then taking about one-quarter of the pieces at a time (so they fit in the frying pan in a single layer without crowding), sauté until lightly browned on all sides. Once each portion is browned, set off to the side in a bowl or plate.
  
• When all the chicken is browned, preheat the oven to 325°F/160°C, adjusting the rack(s) to the bottom and middle. The rack in the middle of the oven needs enough room above it to hold the covered Dutch oven.
• Add the tablespoon olive oil, diced onions, garlic, ground coriander to the Dutch oven (no need to clean it between chicken and onions). Stirring occasionally, cook over gentle heat until the onions soften, about 20 minutes. Add the sweet paprika, lemon zest, honey, chili flakes, then continue to stir over the heat another 1-2 minutes.
• Pour the spiced onion mixture over the chicken pieces in the Dutch oven and stir well to distribute. Pour in the tomatoes, then the chicken broth*, using a little of the broth to "rinse out" the tomato cans of any clinging tomato stuck to the bottom. The meat should be just covered by the liquid. Add the cinnamon sticks and lemon juice, then stir carefully to combine.
• Place the Dutch oven over high heat and bring the liquid to a boil. Once the liquid boils, cover the Dutch oven, then place it in the pre-heated oven. Cook for 45 minutes, checking occasionally (every 20 minutes-ish) to ensure the meat is still covered by liquid and adding more chicken broth (or water) if it is not.
• Remove the Dutch oven from the oven, remove the lid, and pour in the uncooked orzo pasta.*** Stir to combine, then return the pot to the oven (uncovered) for another 25 minutes, at which point the orzo should be very tender. Stir in any greens you might want to add, like baby spinach leaves or petit peas. The heat from the stew will wilt them.
  
• If using halloumi, ten to fifteen minutes after adding the orzo, slice the halloumi and fry it (you can use the same frying pan or a smaller one) until golden brown on both sides, about 5 minutes per side.
• Once the chicken and orzo are tender, add a little more chicken broth to loosen up the sauce if necessary.
  
• Serve the chicken baked with orzo immediately, with a couple slices of the sliced fried halloumi on top of each serving.
  

Notes

*depending on the size Dutch oven you have, you may not be able to add all 4 cups of chicken stock. My 4.5 quart Dutch oven will only hold 2.5 cups. **Select a Dutch oven (or oven-safe pot) that has a lid.

***Alternatively, cook the pasta separately. After 45 minutes of cooking the chicken with the lid on, remove the lid to let some of the liquid evaporate in the hot oven. Meanwhile, once the orzo is cooked, stir in about 1 tablespoon of butter to prevent the pasta from sticking to itself and for richness. Try to time this with the stew being completed.