10/4/10

Kid Friendly Fragrant Cardamom Chicken


I am preparing for the ABC Kids Expo and Baby Show in Las Vegas this week. I will be at the show making some of my recipes with the Baby Chef food steamer / blender. One of my tasks is to demo the Baby Chef Yogurt Maker before the show. I did successfully make the yogurt, it was delicious, but I had four jars and I wanted to use it another way, so I ran with an idea just off the cuff. (OK the real truth is that I fell asleep and woke up at 4:30 realizing that I had not even thought of dinner.) I did really want to use the left over yogurt though, really I did!

I happened to have some beautiful organic chicken on hand, I immediately thought of Tandoori Chicken. The problem here is that I don't have a Tandoori oven nor do I want to add a bunch of spices my daughter wont eat, nor do I have 24 hours for marinating. As usual I tried to figure out how to best make a dish kids would love, and quickly!
This is a good one to get the kids involved they love to help.
The kids love to crush things in the mortar and pestle, have them crush the cardamom pods. Pull out the green husks, and add a pinch of kosher salt and let the kids grind them or use the bottom of a glass on the counter to crush them.
I succeeded, with light flavors of cardamom, coconut and figs. Yes Figs, I know figs are not usually served with Tandoori chicken but this is so far from Tandoori at this point I felt like I could use artistic licence here. (indulge me) We had some fresh black California figs left from farmer's Market, I hate to see food go bad so I decided to use them. The chicken comes out so moist and I bet if you marinated it overnight it would be even better. We served this with Jasmine rice and sauteed spinach.
This took about 10 minutes to prepare



1 whole Boneless chicken breast, skin on
1/2 cup fresh plain yogurt
2 Tablespoons honey
coconut oil
8 figs cut in from top to bottom in fourths
6 cardamom pods, crushed or powdered or 1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/8 teaspoon salt or to taste

Line a cast iron skillet or baking pan with foil (for easy clean up)
Preheat the oven to 375˚F
Coat all the chicken with coconut oil and salt, place in pan skin side up.
Spoon yogurt over the chicken coating every part generously. Sprinkle with cardamom and drizzle honey over the top. Surround the chicken with figs place in oven for 15 minutes.
When the chicken comes out let it fest covered for 5 minutes. Slice and serve with pan juice over rice and sauteed spinach.

Notes on Cardamom:
Cardamom comes from the seeds of a ginger-like plant. The small, brown-black sticky seeds are contained in a pod in three double rows with about six seeds in each row. The pods are between 5-20 mm (1/4”-3/4”) long, the larger variety known as ‘black’, being brown and the smaller being green. The texture of the pod is that of tough paper. Pods are available whole or split and the seeds are sold loose or ground. It is best to buy the whole pods as ground cardamom quickly loses flavour.

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6 comments:

Shira W. said...

Hey Jen it's Shira! Just stumbled on your blog again looking for new ideas to feed Fiona, who just turned one and ended up making this for my son instead! We are dairy free right now so I used coconut milk instead and it was amazing. My hubby was so happy to have some new flavors in the house as we were getting tired of our foods.

I just cooked up two fat chicken breasts at 375 degrees for 45 minutes, after 15 minutes they were still cold and raw. I'm still new to cooking chicken being a vegetarian and all so I totally might have over cooked it out of fear of undercooking. LOL!

Anyways, just wanted to say thanks!

Katerina said...

It must have tasted great with the cardamom. My son would love it too.

Torviewtoronto said...

flavourful delicious
http://torviewtoronto.blogspot.com

Jennifer Carden said...

Shira, your comment made my day!! Did your chicken have bones, poultry with bones will take longer to cook.
Do yourself a favor get a meat thermometer and use it. If you cook your chicken past 165 it will be dry. Also let any meat rest for 5 minutes or more after cooking before cutting into it.
We use lots of coconut milk too!! Tune in for Hawaii in a week or so.

baby food said...

I really love to be here on your new posts so that I can get some new recipe to cook for my lovely kid. And in your post I always found all the recipes so yummy and quick to prepare.
baby food

Winged Creation said...

Grreat blog you have here