I love chicken. I love vinegar. I love chicken and vinegar together. I love it so much that when I cleaned out my recipe clippings a few weeks ago, I had, in addition to my own recipe, three others from various publications. Clearly I’m not alone in my love of this flavor combination.
This meal packs a lot of flavor and adds a note of elegance to a weeknight or weekend meal. Make sure you plan for leftovers!
As with all my recipes, adjust the proportions to suit your needs, but you probably won’t need to increase the amount of vinegar — one cup is the maximum you’ll need for most meals. And the chicken stock and heavy cream are about right as well…unless you are feeding a small crowd.
If you love garlic (and who doesn’t?), the cloves come out of the pot soft and a bit pickled, so don’t be afraid to add some extra.
Chicken with Vinegar Sauce
By Published: April 29, 2013
- Yield: 4 - 6 Servings
- Prep: 10 mins
- Cook: 40 mins
- Ready In: 60 mins
Cooking the vinegar makes for an addictive, mild (yet tangy!) sauce. I love trying new vinegar styles and discovering how they change the flavor of this dish.
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons canola oil
- 4 tablespoons butter divided
- 6 bone-in chicken thighs or legs, or a whole cut-up chicken, breasts halved
- Salt and pepper for seasoning
- 1 head garlic broken into cloves and peeled
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 cup red or white wine vinegar
- 1 cup chicken stock
- 2 tablespoons heavy cream or creme fraiche
Instructions
- Rinse and pat dry the chicken. Season with salt and pepper. In a Dutch oven (or your handy Le Creuset braiser), heat the oil and 2 T butter together over medium-high heat. Add the chicken, skin side down. Toss the garlic and bay leaf into the pot. Cook the chicken until well-browned on the skin side (five minutes or so — you’ll know it’s ready when it lifts easily from the pan), and brown on the other side for about five minutes. Remove from pan and keep warm. (If you are cooking a whole cut-up chicken, be aware that the breast cooks faster than the legs/thighs, so may dry out if you overcook it.)
- Saute the garlic in the remaining fat until light-golden brown. Add the bay leaf.
- Add the vinegar and chicken stock and bring to a boil. Nestle the chicken in the sauce, cover the pan, reduce the heat, and let the mixture simmer for about 20 − 25 minutes (until the chicken is cooked through). Baste a few times to let that vinegary-garlicky goodness absorb into the meat.
- Once the chicken is cooked through, remove to a platter and cover to keep warm. Add the chicken stock, raise the heat, and scrape any tasty browned bits from the bottom of the pot. Remove the bay leaf. Or — if you want a pristine sauce — strain the entire mixture, and return the strained sauce to the pain. Cook down to about a cup of liquid, about ten minutes.
- Reduce the heat to low. Add the remaining butter, whisking constantly until the sauce is smooth and slightly thickened. Keep the heat low, simmering but not boiling the sauce.
- Whisk in the heavy cream. Taste, adjust seasoning.
- Return the chicken to the pan and heat through (3 − 5 minutes). Spoon the sauce over the chicken as you heat. Serve.
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