Apricot Chicken with Fresh Sage

I pulled out a whole chicken to defrost last night and had an idea to make a certain recipe but then this morning I realized I didn’t have all the ingredients – oops.  So I pulled out an old cookbook of my favorite recipes I made for my bridesmaids (way back when) and found a chicken recipe I had almost forgotten about.  For my meals I usually prefer savory over sweet but my soon to be husband requested apricot chicken one night and so I experimented a bit and came up with this one – it is sweet but also sour and smoky/spicy from the chipotle.  You can substitute fresh jalapenos instead of the chipotle (I actually did that tonight because I didn’t have any chipotle chiles on hand but I did have fresh serranos) or you can omit them if you really just want the sweet.

Ingredients:

1 whole chicken cut up into pieces

1 cup apricot preserves (we had a jar from Sand Creek Farm – sweetened with just fruit juice instead of refined sugar)

2 chipotle chiles from a can of chipotle chiles in adobo sauce (or two fresh serranos or jalapenos)

1/4 cup coconut oil or schmaltz

1 Tbsp raw apple cider vinegar

1/2 tsp sea salt

3-5 cloves garlic, peeled

15 fresh sage leaves

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.  Combine the apricot preserves, the chiles, garlic, oil/schmaltz, salt and vinegar together in a blender and blend until you get a thick marinade. Pour the marinade over the chicken in a pyrex dish or roasting pan. Arrange the chicken skin side up.  Place the fresh sage leaves on top of the chicken pieces (whole).

If you are into preparing in advance you can now place the chicken in the fridge until you are ready to roast the chicken.  Remove about an hour before you want to serve and roast, uncovered, until the tops of the chicken pieces are browned and the chicken is cooked through – about 1 hour. Check on the chicken about 30 – 40 min into the cooking time – if it is getting too brown then you can lightly cover with tin foil and continue to cook the rest of the time.  This time I added a sliced onion and some sweet potatoes to the pan so they roasted at the same time so this can be a one dish meal!

Photo credit: jules:stonesoup, on flickr