I really agonize over the name of
this recipe. I was like Dutch oven, one pot. I settled on one pot chicken
because you make it all in one pot. We ready? Do I have to do anything?
Hello? I'm uh, no, I, I dunno why I started doing that
all of a sudden. Today we're going to do a one-pot chicken
with caramelized lemon and dates. It's the kind of chicken dish that is
like somehow everything you want in a chicken. It's brown. It's saucy. It's
super tender. You can't overcook it. It's really easy. Even if you're not
that comfortable searing pieces of meat, because everything just kind of
happens at once in this one pot. I don't love cooking with fruit and I
almost never ever cook with dried fruit. Dates are sort of my one exception
to that rule because I just really love a date. There's a lot
of date jokes to be made here. I won't be taking that bait. What's
that joke where it's like, I love wine. Sometimes I even cook with it. I
feel like that's me with dates. Like I love dates. Sometimes
I even cook with them. That's -- I don't know ... that's not landing. So the sauce could be too lemony or
too bitter or too tangy because of the lemon. And it could be too sweet,
cloyingly so, because of the dates, but the two together sort of cancel
each other out and then you're just left with this super balanced, sweet, salty, sticky, kind of like chickeny sauce that
your chicken sort of braises in a little bit. And it's super, super good. Something that I wanted to tell you
about this chicken is that in the book I call for a whole chicken. To sort of
make it a little bit more weeknight friendly. I've adapted this to use
chicken legs or chicken thighs, or you could just buy the legs and
the thighs, which is what I've done. I definitely would not do this
with boneless skinless breasts. I can tell you that with a
hundred percent certainty. So I'm seasoning these on both
sides with salt and pepper. I'm using tongs to turn. So I don't have
to wash my hands in between, but no, whatever. So really this
chicken is all it is, is chicken seared in a pot and then lemons, shallots, which I have like the
world's smallest shallots today. Look how tiny these are. I may throw in a red onion, half a red onion, just because these are simply too small. And I've seen a lot of shallots in my day. I like the red onions
because -- and the shallots, because when they're added
to the pot with the lemon, the acid and the lemon sort of pickles, the onion and turns them this
beautiful color. I went to a farm. Listen, I'll be honest. I
went to a farm and I want it. I try to go to farms whenever possible
to get my produce A because I like picking it out myself, but B I just think it's nice to
support a person who grows your food. This is just how big the
shallots are right now. I have a, I have a feeling there are sort of
like end of season if I had to guess, but I'm going to love them
all the same. No shallot left behind. I am an equal opportunity.
shallot lover. As for the dates. These are Medjool dates, which
are my favorite type of dates. There are a lot of dates in this world.
If you live in Southern California, there's an amazing date farm. What is
it called? Is it Flying Disc Ranch? I'll look it up. We'll
correct it below in post. I feel like in these types of videos, I'm just sort of whatever
I'm talking through this, um, I'll cut everything and prep everything, and then we'll like move on to
searing the chicken. But in real life, what I'm doing is I'm seasoning
the chicken. I'm searing it. And while it's searing, I'm prepping
the rest of the ingredients. So that's how I'm going
to move through this. There's just. A thin layer of olive oil. We are going to sear them skin
side down and then flip them. You know, sometimes when you eat a
piece of chicken and there's like, feels like there's like a
flabby skin or like bits there. We're rendering out that fat
now so that you don't get that. So it's just like one beautiful even
piece of sort of crispy golden skin around your chicken. While
those chicken bits sear, I'm gonna go ahead and slice my
lemons. I'm going to slice my shallots, my very small, small shallots and
get the pits out of these dates. The whole lemon is a real gift. Not only do you get the
juiciness from the fruit, you get the bitterness from the pit, and then you get that sort of like
perky zesty-ness from the peel. I will say this, it's really
important to take the seeds out. A lot of people think that most of the
bitterness is coming from the peel and the pith. It's not, it's mostly
coming from, uh, the seeds. I'm not going to peel the
shallots or the onion. I think the skin, it gets really
nice and papery in the pot. You can eat around it. Um, but
some of these can get halved. I think we're ready over here. Oh,
we're ready. This kitchen is small. It's not as small as some
people's kitchens in New
York, but it's not massive. And my workspace is kind of like
limited to this area, but honestly, I kind of like it that way because I can
go from here to here without panicking or worrying. And that allowed me
to do more things at one time. And I'm all about maximum optimization. So it actually really works for me
to have this sort of limited space. And that's, I'm just going to cut
through the root and I'll do like wedges like about that thick.
And then as for the dates, I'm just going to fish out the
pit with my hands like that. And it just pops right out and you don't
have to worry about breaking them up into even smaller pieces because that's
going to happen naturally in the pot as they cook. Ooh. Speaking of, I'm going to turn my oven on
because I'm gonna actually finish this chicken in the oven. So I'm going to go 425. This chicken's coming out just for a second. I just definitely squirted hot
chicken oil on my eye. That's going to look cool
later. This little straggler, I'm just going to let it keep
cooking. So while that happens, I'm going to add my lemon slices to
the pot and the shallots. The dates, and the thyme, I'm going to hold off
until all of these are kind of in there, because as the name would indicate, I'm
trying to caramelize these lemon slices, right? It's starting to happen,
but hasn't happened quite yet. I'm going to flip this
piece of chicken now. And just like I would with the chicken, I'm going to check on these lemon slices
periodically, see how they're doing, seeing how they're caramelizing.
I'm at like a medium high heat. I'm going to eat this piece of chicken
skin that fell off the chicken. It's delicious. These are
starting to caramelize. Oh! No! No! All right, well that one's
not going back in the pot, but you could see what it
was supposed to look like. So as you start to caramelize
and do their thing, I'm going to add this
chicken back to the pot. I'm going to kind of just
move these little bits around, make room for our new friends
coming back in the fold. And they're going to go skin side up.
They're all going to nestle in with one another. Sometimes you have to find like a
little room, but they'll all fit. Even if they're like a little overlappy
with each other, that's fine. I'm going to add the dates. Just
kind of like scatter them around. They'll think down into
the sauce when it's their time. Sometimes I'll put them in there,
like I'm making an edible arrangement. Sometimes another thing we're
going to add to this pot is water. We don't need to add chicken broth or
vegetable broth or anything that comes in a box because we have so much
flavor happening in the pot. If you just add water
and just a little bit, it's enough to make the whole thing kind
of saucy and the chicken fat, the bones in the chicken, the meat, the lemon, the
shallot is all going to season the water anyway. Everything's gonna become very quiet.
Isn't that amazing? You just kinda wanna make sure
everything is, everything is touching. Everything is touching
the title of my new book. So this is going to go into the oven and
that's going to be skin side up without a lid. Because if I put the lid on, then it's going to steam
and sog out the skin, which I worked so hard to get crispy
on top. So we'll see you in 20 minutes. Okay. I think this chicken's done. Um, and basically what I'm looking for is
the sauce to be nicely thickened in the bottom of the pot, but also for the
chicken to be cooked through and tender. So make sure you touch
every piece of chicken. I'm going to put that in for like another five
to six minutes actually at 425. The way that they feel or the
way that they're going to taste, if that makes any sense, like, if you feel it and it feels
tight and it feels bouncy, the chicken might be tight
and bouncy and texture, but if it feels tender and you
know, sort of fall aparty and, and supple, then that's
how it's going to taste. Do I sound like Marianne
Williamson. So yeah, we'll give it, give it five and then we'll pop her out. It's been about twenty-five minutes. And these chicken
thighs were on the larger side. There's a lot of them in that pot. So
they took a little bit extra time. Ooh, it smells crazy good. And because we're
doing this at such a high temperature, all of the things that I've put on
top continued to brown, I don't know. It looks pretty tight. I
am going to get a plate. I don't know. I'm trying
to do this like elegantly. This is like actually just
how I would do it. Um, sometimes what I'll do is I'll like
just kind of smash any dates that didn't break down. I'm just spinning
this around the chicken. Not necessarily on top of it, because I
don't want to like get that skin soggy. Oh, you know what I forgot
to add to this chicken? Well, that's actually in the recipe
is crushed red pepper flake. I'm going to use like a
really fine Aleppo style. I'd like to eat this chicken now. Hmm. This chicken is so good. What else can I say about this
chicken? No, it really is to me like the perfect, like
salty, bitter sweet tangy, savory herby chicken. I don't put anything
in the pot or on the plate that's like for decoration. So
these lemons are to be eaten. That is what they're for. A lot of people
will decline that offer as I've seen. But to me they're like the best part,
really. I mean, chicken's really the best part They're the second best part. I feel like it's like giving
me a lot of energy too. I feel like I could go rock
climbing a thing, a thing I've never done. And that's our little
chicken. Like and subscribe. I don't know what you want me to say. I was listening to the Long Pond Sessions, which is the acoustic version of
Folklore. It's raining outside. I have my cup of coffee and I feel very
excited to be making like a cozy, braised chicken dish today. So if you are also having this
sort of day put on that album, uh, maybe make yourself a cup of tea or
something and, uh, braise some chicken.
I’ve made this dish countless times, and it never disappoints. She’s just so good at what she does. Very happy to have her back.
I made the goodbye meatballs after watching her video on it. Can't believe I slept on them.
Great and easy recipe - best part of Tuesday and is having her drop a new video
I genuinely really like Alison but the editing on this feels like its trying to be Its Alive to me?
I love her and this recipe sm. So glad she’s doing videos again!!