Week 21 - Stone Fruit

I'm not the biggest fan of mixing fruit with savory dishes, but I was hoping to find something for this challenge week that wouldn't be too sweet. It wasn't really stone fruit season here when I did this challenge, so I decided to go with some preserves. We had apricot preserves left over from Easter when A made hot cross buns, so I went with apricot chicken, based on a recipe I found on Savory Nothings.

The first step was to brown the chicken and then add onions. This step unexpectedly took a while, and the chicken got a little overdone, because apparently this chicken was super watery, maybe because it was super huge. I think we got it from BJ's, where the four chicken breasts were over five pounds, and maybe the biggest I had ever seen. But once the chicken finally browned, it was time to deglaze with some orange juice, add a cup of apricot jam (had just enough left), a couple tbsp of soy sauce and BBQ sauce, and a tbsp of honey, reduce the sauce, and then top everything with scallions.

We thought this was really good. I could taste the sweetness of the apricot, but it wasn't cloyingly sweet. instead nicely balanced by the other ingredients. It was also not as sticky as I thought it would be. B didn't eat any of it (the whole sauce thing again), but we liked it. It reminded us of the sauce for sweet and sour chicken. I'm not as into sweet sauces, so we might not do it again, but it was good for the challenge