Golden Chicken
This chicken dish combines elements from three of my favorite chicken recipes: chicken curry, chicken tagine, and a Creole-style smothered chicken. The braising liquid is rich and delicious, getting its yellow golden color from turmeric and saffron and its intense flavor from a low-and-slow simmer. Serve over buttery mashed potatoes, rice, or noodles. Ladle the sauce over top, and garnish with sliced green onions and minced jalapeños.
Recipe Summary
Not all recipes have names. Sometimes you just throw a bunch of stuff together, and eat it without even considering what it would, or should, be called, which is not a problem unless you also film the dish and plan to post it online. It's this exact set of circumstances that led to a little something called "Golden Chicken." Oh yeah, with a name like Golden Chicken, you know it's got to be good. Or at least golden. And this is both.
This started out as a quick and dirty curry. But after everything was simmering in the pan, it started to remind me of a tagine, as well as (thanks to the "Holy Trinity") some sort of creole-ish chicken stew. Combining all those words into a recipe name seemed too hard, so I simply called it what it looked like. So that covers the almost literal meaning, but the name also worked figuratively, at least according to a cook I used to work with in college.
I can't remember his name, but he was the first person I'd ever come across that used the word "golden" as a synonym for "great," "awesome," "lucky," "nice," "fine," "perfect," and about two dozen other similar words. If you asked him how he was, he'd say, "I'm golden." If you asked him how the dinner prep was going, he'd say, "We're golden." And, I'm pretty sure if he made it, and you asked him how this chicken dish was, he's say it was "golden." I couldn't agree more. Which is why I really do hope you give this a try soon. Enjoy!
Ingredients
Directions
Chef's Notes:
Chicken legs include the thigh and drumstick. This can be made with chicken breasts, but the cooking time will be much less. You'd need to remove the chicken breasts once they were cooked through and set them aside while the liquid cooks and reduces by half. Then add them back in just long enough to reheat them before serving.
You can use green bell pepper instead of jalapeño, any vinegar instead of white vinegar, and chicken broth instead of water and chicken base.
For a thicker sauce, add a tablespoon of flour when you are sautéing the vegetables.
As the liquids are reducing, you can skim off some of the fat if you like.
