Thanksgiving

Today is Thanksgiving for those of you who are out of the loop. I will be later heading over to my fiance's house to share dinner with her family. I am not sure what all will be there already, but I am sure we will have something along the line of dinner roast, green beans, mashed potatoes, corn, and of course cranberry sauce. I will be bringing one of my favorite Thanksgiving dishes, apricot chicken.

I first had apricot chicken about 4 years ago on Thanksgiving. A friend of mine invited me over to her house to have dinner with them. Her parents were both from the Caribbean, so it was far from what you would call a traditional Thanksgiving. I immediately fell in love with this dish, both for its taste and its simplicity to make.

Looking around the internet a bit, it is hard to say what the origins of this dish are. A lot of places all seem to claim that it started with them. The apricot has a much more defined history though. Apricots were first cultivated in China about 4000 years ago. They were believed to increase the fertility of women. By 100 BC the Romans had them and were then cultivating them. By the 16th century they were growing happily in Europe.

One thing of possible worry is that Russian dressing can be very difficult to find. There is only one store here in Walla Walla that sells it. You can always make  your own. I have tried it both with and without frying the chickettes before baking them. I found that it still tastes amazing without frying it, but you lose on that nice and crispy texture of the fried chickettes.  

Apricot Chicken

    2 Rolls Worthington Chickettes
    Pinch of Salt
    2 Tablespoons Minced Garlic
    1 15 oz Container Russian Dressing
    1 19 oz Container Apricot Preserves

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Break up chickettes into 1/4 inch to 1 inch pieces depending on your preference of size.

3. Brown chickettes in skillet with a little bit of olive oil. This step is optional I like it because I like the crispy bits.

4. Saute the garlic with the salt. The salt helps the garlic caramelize.

5. In a large mixing bowl mix the Russian dressing and the apricot preserves it seems to be easier to mix well if you mix it before adding the chickettes.
 
6. Mix together the chickettes, garlic and apricot mix.

7. Place all in a baking pan and bake for 30-50 minutes the tips should be turning a nice brown and the apricot mix should be nice and thick.