Pomegranate Chicken

This recipe will work with cut-up whole fryers or your favorite chicken parts.

Sun, Oct 18 2009 at 2:29 PM

Related Topics:

Recipes, Beer

Pomegranate Chicken

Ingredients

2 small frying chickens, 3 to 3 1⁄2 pounds each, or the equivalent in chicken parts
Kosher salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
3 tablespoons pomegranate concentrate

Time Estimates

Prep time: 10 min

Cook time: 45 min

Total time: 55 min

Directions

Cut whole chickens into quarters, or break them down further into breast halves, wings, drumsticks, and thighs. Save the backs, necks, and giblets for stock. Trim off any excess skin and fat. If seasoning the chicken, sprinkle it lightly with salt (about 1 teaspoon per chicken) and pepper; cover and refrigerate. If starting within a few hours of cooking, use two or three times as much salt, most of which will rinse away.
Preheat the oven to 350˚F. Rinse the chicken and pat dry. Choose a baking dish that will fit all the pieces in one layer, not too snugly; if this is impossible, use one dish for legs, another for breasts and wings. Rub the chicken pieces with 2 tablespoons of the pomegranate concentrate and arrange them skin side up in the pans. Bake uncovered 30 minutes, brush with the remaining 1 tablespoon of concentrate, and bake another 15 minutes, or until the juices run clear and the breast and thigh meat register 160˚F on an instant-read thermometer.

Yield

Makes 8

Good to know

This recipe will work with cut-up whole fryers or your favorite chicken parts. The key ingredient here is pomegranate concentrate, sometimes called pomegranate molasses, which is simply the juice from fresh pomegranate seeds reduced to a syrup. It’s sold in bottles in Middle Eastern groceries.

Which beer should I drink with this?

Sudwerk Pilsner, Full Sail Amber Ale

Menu

A Levantine Dinner for Eight

This menu combines some of the favorite dishes of the lands of the eastern end of the Mediterranean. While religion prevents many residents of the region from drinking beer, their cuisines still provide us with lots of beer-friendly foods; not surprising, since this is where humans first cultivated grains thousands of years ago, and first converted them into something we would recognize as beer.

Also from The Microbrew Lover's Cookbook:

• From the Beer Belt

• Pizza and Beyond

• From the Spice Bazaar

• Malt and Hops, Meet Ginger and Soy

• From the Home of the Chile Pepper

• Beer in the Melting Pot

Go back to The Microbrew Lover's Cookbook index page.