VisualRecipes.com is a community of cooking enthusiasts who have the ability to easily share recipes with step-by-step pictures. Members can also discuss and share comments. Sign Me Up!

Thanksgiving Recipes

Mediterranean Style Marinated Chicken


Prep Time: 3+ hours \| Cook Time: 30 minutes - 1 hour \| Serves: 3 Dinner » Chicken » Mediterranean Visual Recipe By: Max Kawaky Click Here To Print Recipe Using Selected Print Style \| Click On Images To Enlarge Comment On This Recipe Share on Facebook
Ingredients: 1 large ziploc (or other tough resealable) plastic bag 6 boneless thighs (or breasts if you prefer, thighs are much moister which I prefer) 16-18 Pimentoed green olives 8 Dried figs 4 cloves of garlic Fresh cilantro Dried basil (I couldn't find any so I ended up using oregano instead, I think I might actually like it better with oregano than basil) Balsamic vinegar Olive oil Brown sugar Salt Pepper (preferably fresh ground) 3/4 cup of chicken broth

Step 1: Now we start the preparation. First, slice and dice the olives into nice little chunks like so:

Step 2: Dump 'em into the bag. Next slice the dried figs in half:

Step 3: Add to the bag. Now, grab a good bit of cilantro and chop it up. You'll need two tablespoons of the minced cilantro and it loses a lot of volume once you start chopping. The amount in the picture is about 1 1/4 tablespoons.
Step 4: Add the 2 tbsp of cilantro to the bag. Next it's time for the garlic. Grab four cloves (NOT heads), proceed to take the skin off like so: And for the love of god, don't hit the knife too hard, it only takes one firm strike with the heel of your hand, you don't have to drive the knife through the cutting board and into the counter. Also, if you hold the knife so that it is not parallel to your cutting surface the garlic will have a tendency to shoot out from under and ricochet off random stuff in your kitchen.

Step 5: After you have your 4 cloves with no skin left, proceed to mince them like so:
Step 6: Slide the garlic into the bag with the growing marinade. Now add 2 teaspoons of the dried basil (or oregano in my case). This ingredient is pretty hard to screw up, and any standard Italian/Mediterranean herb mix will do just fine.
Step 7: Next we sweeten it up a little bit with 3 tablespoons of brown sugar:

Step 8: Time for the liquids - 2 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar; if your vinegar is especially strong go with 1 1/2 tablespoons as it's easy to overpower this dish with too much vinegar.

Step 9: And then 2 teaspoons of olive oil:
Step 10: Next add about 1/2 teaspoon of salt and 1/4 teaspoon of fresh ground pepper. Now that we have all the ingredients for the marinade in the ziploc bag, close it up and shake it around to mix up the contents. Then reopen it and add the chicken thighs (make sure to trim any excess fat beforehand). Close it back up, but make sure to keep a bit of air in there (i.e. don't close it like you're going to be sticking this in the freezer and don't want the chicken to get freezerburn). Shake the bag around once more to distribute the marinade over the chicken.

Step 11: Now, try and find a spot in your hopefully crowded fridge for the marinade to sit. It took me almost 10 minutes of rearranging stuff to get a nice flat spot. So, now we let the marinade sit for 4 to 4 1/2 hours in the fridge. Make sure to check in once every 45 minutes to hour and shake around the bag some more, flip it over, redistribute the contents, etc.

Step 12: Okay, so the four hours is up. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit (177 celsius for you non-yanks). Pull the chicken out of the fridge, open the bag and dump the entire contents into a pyrex or other baking dish. Now add the 3/4 cup of chicken broth that you've been wondering what to do with for four hours. Put this in your preheated oven and let it cook for 30-40 minutes. For reference, I forgot to preheat my oven and just cooked it at 375 instead and the thinner pieces were slightly overcooked at 36 minutes when I pulled it out of the oven.

Step 13: After you take the chicken out of the oven strain off all the excess chicken broth/fat/etc. leaving only the chicken and marinade ingredients. I've found the best method for this to be a slotted spoon.

Step 14: Add on whatever sides you feel like. Tonight I opted for last night's leftover pesto linguine and some sauteed vegetables. Usually I serve this dish with rice pilaf or coos coos for the full Mediterranean/Middle East dish but I got lazy tonight.