Syrian Chicken

Syrian cuisine has many influences depending on the region and cultural background. This is unusual in that it combines chicken with apricots, figs and preserved lemon. The smallish preserved lemons are very different from lemons found in Britain and are preserved whole in brine to produce a lemony addition without the sourness. This is an excellent dish and highly recommended.

Ingredients

For 1	Continued...
1 chicken breast	1 clove garlic
¼ tspn ground cumin	1 tspn dried thyme
¼ tspn cinnamon	1 tbspn lemon juice
¼ tspn turmeric	1 preserved lemon
¼ tspn salt	2 tspn honey
freshly ground black pepper to taste	50 gm dried apricots (apxrox 8)
2 tspn flour	50 gm dried figs (approx 2)
1 tbspn olive oil	100 ml chicken stock
50 gm onion (prepared weight)	100 ml dry cider (see notes)
2 tspn ginger

Preparation

Cut chicken breast into 2 or 3 pieces and dry with a kitchen towel (see pic).
In a bowl mix together the cumin, cinnamon, turmeric, salt, pepper and flour, then thoroughly coat the chicken pieces with the spice/flour mixture.
Slice the onion.
Grate the ginger.
Crush the garlic.
Chop the preserved lemon and discard the pips.
Chop the apricots.
Remove the stalks and chop the figs.

Cooking

Heat the oil in a wok or large pan and add the chicken, frying for about 3 min to brown on both sides, then remove onto kitchen paper and reserve.
Add the onion, ginger, garlic and thyme to the pan and fry, stirring regularly, for 2 min.
Add the reserved chicken, apricot, figs, preserved lemon, honey, chicken stock, lemon juice, and cider and simmer, stirring regularly, for 20 min, adding more cider and/or stock to prevent drying and to maintain the desired sauce consistency until the chicken is fully cooked. The chicken will be cooked when it is white throughout when cut at its thickest part..

Serving

Serve with rice (see notes).

Notes

Optionally the dry cider can be replaced with white wine which would actually be more traditional.
It is quite common for Syrian rice to be cooked with safron, but a little turmeric could be used to provide a yellow colouring. It is also fairly common to include Syrian flat bread but pitta bread could be used instead if desired. This has been adapted from a recipe at grouprecipes.com

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