That Thing I Always Cook: Hannah Bronfman’s Braised Chicken With Apricots and Olives
In our new column That Thing I Always Cook, women you admire offer up the story behind their go-to recipe—something we could all use right about now. First up: DJ, health advocate, and founder of wellness site HBFIT Hannah Bronfman, who shares how to make her beloved Moroccan-inspired braised chicken with apricots and olives.
In college, instead of heating up frozen DiGiornos or hoarding Tater Tots in the dining hall, Hannah Bronfman would cook chicken milanese, steak, and stews for her roommate and neighbors. When her friends hosted a fried chicken cooking contest, she took the extra step to reach out to her grandfather’s chef, the woman who taught her how to cook at a young age, for her secret ingredient to ace the competition. Needless to say, you want Bronfman as a roommate.
“Well, yes and no,” she says. “I couldn’t do my laundry for shit, so I’d do the cooking and my roommates did the laundry. It was a give-and-take relationship.” These days Bronfman is living in quarantine with her husband and friends at their home on Long Island—“There are video calls happening in every room of the house. One person had to take the bathroom for a call earlier”—but that itch to feed loved ones remains intact. “We’ve been coming up with weekly menus and cooking some hearty meals. I feel like we all need a bit more sustenance right now.”
One of Bronfman’s go-to recipes is her Moroccan-inspired Braised Chicken With Apricot and Olives, which can be found in her book, Do What Feels Good. “I first tasted this flavor profile when I was planning my wedding in Morocco in 2016—it seemed to be in almost every dish. When I came home, I started to play around and made my own version of it.” Bronfman makes the protein-packed meal once every three weeks, and her husband and friends confirm it’s a total crowd pleaser.
“The chicken is so juicy and basically falls apart, and the apricots add a real sweetness to it,” she says. If you’re limiting your grocery runs these days and don’t have a fully stocked pantry, Bronfman recommends using lemons instead of apricots, black olives instead of green, or even adding in some chipotle to change it up. “In this climate, people really do want a gourmet experience at home, and this is really quite easy to make. For lack of a better term, just set it and forget it.”
Braised Chicken With Apricot and Olives
Serves 4 to 8
Ingredients
8 chicken thighs, or 1 chicken cut into 8 pieces
1 teaspoon sea salt
¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 white onion, roughly chopped
1 fennel bulb, trimmed and roughly chopped
1 cup unsweetened dried apricots
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cumin
¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
Finely grated zest and juice of an orange
2 cups chicken bone broth
1 cup pitted green olives
Instructions
Sprinkle the chicken with sea salt.
Heat a large oven-safe skillet or Dutch oven with a tight-fitting lid over medium-high heat. While the skillet is heating, pat the chicken dry.
Add the oil to the pan, then add the chicken, skin side down. Cook for 5 to 10 minutes, or until the skin is golden brown and crisp. Remove the chicken from the skillet and set aside.
Add the onion, fennel, apricots, ginger, cumin, cinnamon, black pepper, and the orange zest to the skillet. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the onion and fennel are tender.
Return the chicken to the skillet and add the orange juice and chicken broth. Cook, covered, for 35 minutes, or until the chicken is tender.
Remove the lid, add the olives, and cook for an additional 10 to 15 minutes to recrisp the skin. Serve immediately.
Leftovers can be stored in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 5 days.
From the book Do What Feels Good by Hannah Bronfman. Copyright © 2019 by Hannah Bronfman. Published on January 8, 2019 by Harper Wave, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Reprinted by permission.
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Originally Appeared on Glamour
