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.