RecipeShare: Chicken thighs with apricots and garbanzos

Mar 2, 2015

Recipe from Zehorit Heilicher, cook and cooking class instructor in Minneapolis

Serves 4 people
Your gift of $15 buys a family in need groceries to make a healthy meal.

Ingredients

• 1 whole chicken, cut up
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 medium onion, minced
• 2 tablespoons minced garlic
• 1/2 cup minced dried apricots
• 15 ounces canned garbanzo beans, drained
• 2 teaspoons saffron threads, ground
• 3 cups chicken stock, heated
• 1-cup currants
• 1/2-cup pine nuts
• Salt and pepper
• 1 1/2 cups of long grain rice

Directions

1. In a 12″ oven safe sauté pan with cover, heat olive oil. Season the chicken with salt and pepper and brown in the pan uncovered, about 2-3 minutes per side. Set the chicken aside. Heat the oven to 350 degrees F while the chicken is browning.
2. Add the onion, the apricots and garlic to the pan and sauté until fragrant. Add the rice and saffron and sauté for 3 minutes more. Season with salt and pepper and then pour in the hot chicken stock. Stir gently to combine well and then add the garbanzo beans. Bring the mixture to a boil and then lower the heat to simmer, top the rice with the chicken pieces spread out evenly and cover. Place in the oven and bake for 30-40 minutes.
3. Check the rice on occasion and add more broth if the rice seems too dry.
4. While the chicken is baking, heat a small frying pan over medium heat and add the currants. Pour 2-3 tablespoons of water onto the currants to plump them up and cook until all liquid has evaporated. Add the pine nuts and cook for a couple more minutes until the nuts are lightly browned.
5. Before serving, sprinkle the currant-pine nut mixture over the rice and the chicken. Serve hot.
6. Alternatives: instead of saffron use 2 teaspoons cumin and 1 teaspoon dried oregano; instead of pine nuts and currants use fresh minced Italian parsley to sprinkle over the chicken.

About the recipe author

Zehorit was born in Israel to a Yemenite immigrant family. Growing up in multi-cultural Givat Olga, she experienced Israel’s rich ethnic diversity through food and celebration. After serving in the Israeli army and attending Tel Aviv University, Zehorit came to Minneapoils to work in a summer camp where she met her husband. Since then Zehorit has been raising her 4 children, teaching cooking classes in both the Jewish and the general communities and volunteering.  Zehorit brings to the kitchen her Mediterranean roots, her passion for healthy and flavorful dishes and her love of people and storytelling. Teaching in the Twin cities for the past 10 years, she shares her appreciation for the way in which culture, geography and history shape our food and the way we gather to eat it.

Salvation Army food fact

All of our 14 locations in outstate Minnesota offer either a food shelf, a hot meal program or both to help individuals and families in need stretch their dollars.