The best kind of challenge
Every so often, a French Fridays with Dorie recipe pops up that makes you wish you had access to great ingredients. This week’s recipe, Seared Duck Breasts with Kumquats, is one of those. Duck breasts? Not on my radar unless I call “my” friendly restaurant supplier. Kumquats? If my fellow Doristas couldn’t find them state/Canada-side, you can imagine there’s little hope for this island girl. Not that it bothered me. Au contraire, it was time to improvise and have fun with this challenge.
What do we always have on hand? Boneless, skinless chicken thighs. The dark chicken meat will never be an apples to apples substitute for gamey duck breasts, but it is as close as it gets. Orange zest syrup replaces the not-yet-in season kumquats. A bottle of $4 merlot fills the fruity wine quota. If the recipe from Around My French Table is your woo-food, dinner date at home recipe, this is the weekday version for whenever the cravings hit for citrus and wine sauce. This is no impostor fragrance version of the recipe. It’s good on its own merits.
Sangria Chicken
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Rating: 0
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Rate this recipe!
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Servings |
Prep Time |
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2servings of two boneless thighs per person |
25minutes |
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Servings |
Prep Time |
|
2servings of two boneless thighs per person |
25minutes |
|
|
Sangria Chicken
Votes: 0
Rating: 0
You:
Rate this recipe!
|
|
|
Servings |
Prep Time |
|
2servings of two boneless thighs per person |
25minutes |
|
Servings |
Prep Time |
|
2servings of two boneless thighs per person |
25minutes |
|
|
|
Instructions
The Sauce
On a medium saucepan, bring the wine, balsamic vinegar, shallot chunks and peppercorns to a boil. Reduce to a simmer until it reduces in half.
Add the orange juice and the chicken stock, and bring up to a boil again. Reduce the sauce until only about two cups of liquid remain. Strain the shallots and the peppercorns and set the sauce aside or refrigerate until ready to cook the chicken.
The Chicken
In a small saucepan, combine the sugar, water and orange zest. Bring to a boil and reduce to a simmer, until all the sugar is dissolved in the liquid. Remove from the heat but let the zest continue steeping in the syrup.
In a large pan or Dutch oven, heat the olive oil. Season the chicken thighs with salt and pepper. Cook the chicken thighs throughly for about ten minutes. Remove from the pan.
Add the reserved sauce and deglaze the browned chicken bits. Pour in the orange syrup and teaspoon of balsamic vinegar, and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to a simmer and add back the chicken thighs. Let them warm in the sauce for 5 more minutes and serve.
Red Wine + Citrus = Sangria!
Oh yeah… and didn’t the sauce ingredient’s remind you of sangria? Citrus and red wine… all we were missing was the shot of brandy and the fizzy soda! The Sangria chicken moniker seemed appropriate, or at least better than naming the dish for what it isn’t. Olé and rhythmic handclaps to another delicious French Friday!
French Fridays with Dorie is an online group where home cooks and bloggers from all over the world work their way through the recipes in Dorie Greenspan’s Around My French Table. Click here to see the group’s seared duck breasts with kumquats – or creative takes like this one – on this week’s link roundup.
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Terrific option, Adriana! I’m going to have to make your version, too 🙂
Great interpretation Adriana! Nice one!
I love it! Way to get creative with this one. And you’re right, the lack of ingredients rather frees you up from any concieved notions of having to follow the recipe and gives you license to play freely. Your version looks delicious.
Bravo Adriana! for improvising and coming up with the perfect substitutions for all those tricky ingredients! I have to confess that cooking duck intimidates the hell out of me but I can definitely do no wrong with chicken thighs!
If Dorie can riff on Duck à l’Orange you may riff on Pqn-seared Duck with Candied Kumquats. Although I do love duck, I believe boneless chicken thighs are more in my calorie-and-price range. Very nicely done. I salute you for the many improvisations you must make with our FFWD recipes but I really like reading about the exotic and different ingredients you use. I’m so happy to have you back blogging regularly with FFWD although I always kept up with your other Posts. I absolutely wish, wish, wish, you could have been there when the JarJarDuck arrived. It was hysterically funny. After dinner, if you can call it that, I returned to the hotel and ate an entire bag of Trader Joe’s fat-free caramel corn! It’s 25 degreesF and snowing in Aspen, I’m thinking PRico sounds pretty good right now.
Thank you for sharing your version. I make duck all the time, but I think the secret is in the sauce. I look forward to trying your chicken version.
Cheers!
Nice! Love the substitution and I’ll definitely be trying this with chicken thighs. I didn’t even think of the sangria connection until I saw your post on the p&q!
love your take on it, its pretty awesome and the sauce looks so decadent!
Love your ingenuity, Adriana! The substitution of chicken sounds perfect! We eat a lot of chicken in our house…I’ll have to give this a try! Sounds wonderful! Happy Friday!
Love your interpretation of this dish. Lack of ingredients is never a road block for our Adriana 🙂
Looks wonderful! I am waiting a few weeks until kumquats show up in the markets, but I am thinking of substituting chicken for the duck. Great job!
I love your rename of the recipe! I’ve never put fizzy soda in sangria, but it sounds good. One more idea for all my extra candied fruit and syrup.
I love all the substitutes for this recipe. I would like to try that with the chicken thighs, they
are so tasty. Your dish looks perfect.
Adriana, your dish looks picture perfect and your substitutions sound like they were a big hit and quite delicious – wonderful interpretation of this week´s recipe and title!
Have a nice weekend,
Andrea
Great adaptation. Your meals looks delicious.
Nice adaptation Adriana! I went with pork loin and cherries. I think the technique and ingredients lend themselves to many combinations.
I hadn’t thought of the sangria connection, but you are right! It tasted good. I used moscato and oranges with my duck.