Savory and sweet: Daisy's chicken with figs

There is something rather "exotic" about mixing fruit with savory elements. Somehow, we associate those combinations with far off places, the "orient," even though that word is out of fashion now. Yet, frequently, those combinations are much closer to home and they do fool people.

At our New Year's party, I made a dish that I learned watching the wonderful Puertoriccana, Daisy Martinez. I am not going to fracture the Spanish, I'm just going to call it "chicken with figs" because that's what it is. When we served this, people thought it was Persian, or from the mideast somewhere.

Interestingly , my lamb with apricots dish IS in fact middle eastern. I do not see a link between the two cuisines, but it is possible I am missing something. I am also told, by those more versed in this cuisine than I, that this may be Daisy's fantasia on a Puerto Rican dish, but it is not Puerto Rican.

Well, if someone will not claim it, I will. This is a wonderful dish. It's wonderful for parties, it's wonderful for dinner. Yes, it is time consuming, but it's worth every minute of it.

I have changed Daisy's recipe a little, and I'll tell you how I do. Also, I will give it to you exactly how she taught me, on her televsion show.

You need a somewhat long list of ingredients. You need bacon, about a half pound. Also a quart and a half of chicken stock, three tablespoons of flour, a third of a cup of cognac or dry sherry, two carrots, two stalks of celery, and a large onion. Finally, five cloves and two bay leaves. And that's what you need for the SAUCE. Then, you will need four pounds of chicken and a pound of dried figs.

This is a recipe that makes the full amount of sauce, but half of the chicken of Daisy's recipe. I like to cook the recipe down to make a thicker, almost glazey sauce, rather than a wetter one. If you have the space, the people, and the time, then double the amount of bacon , chicken, and figs given above.

When Daisy makes the recipe, she uses a full chicken. I find that I can't cook all of the parts of the chicken to a good even degree, so I use chicken thighs. They are "finger friendly," they stand up to overcooking (a risk here), and they taste good. You be the judge of what you want. Four pounds is about twelve thighs on the bone.

Ok, here we go. First, you have to cook the bacon. I have written that I find it much easier to cook bacon if I add a little olive oil first. I prevent burning that way. And that's what you should do here. Cut a half pound of bacon into bite sized pieces, and heat up about two tablespoons of olive oil in a very wide, deep skillet. Fry the bacon at medium heat until it's crispy. It will crisp up faster and nicer, if you drain off excess fat occasionally. When the bacon is crisp, then drain it on paper towels. We'll come b ack to it.

Pour off just about all of the fat - save maybe three tablespoons, and add the vegetables, cut into irregular chunks. No fancy stuff here. Sautee them until they begin to brown. This is going to take you in excess of five minutes, but not more than ten. Now, add the flour and stir it really well. You want the white color to disappear. This will not look promising, but it's fine.

Next step, which is very important, is to take that pot off of the flame, and add the cognac or sherry. You do this to avoid burning down your kitchen. After you've added it, put the pan back on the flame, and cook the liquid away. When it's gone, add the chicken stock. Stir this around, add the bay leaves and cloves, and bring it to a simmer. Then, add some salt, and let it cook away for thirty minutes.

What you are doing here is making a variation on "sauce espagnole," which is a nightmarishly time consuming classic of the French kitchen. This simpler v ersion is quite fine.

There is, however, a simpler way to do this, if you are making the dish for people who do not eat pork. Instead of cooking bacon, cook your chicken in that olive oil until it browns. Then put that aside, and use the chicken infused fat to cook the vegetables.

If you have room on the stove to do the next step, do it while the sauce is cooking. Otherwise, wait. What you now want to do is sautee those chicken pieces. Pat them dry (REAL important here), salt them, and then brown them in another few tablespoons of fat, skin side down, until it's nice and brown. Then flip them over and cook them a few more minutes. No need to be rigorous here, because there's going to be more cooking.

While the chicken is cooking away, get the figs, cut the little tough tip off of the top, and cut them into halves, lengthwise.

You now have your chicken, your figs, and your sauce. If you did the bacon free version, return the thighs to the pan. Drain the sauce through a sieve, right over the chicken pieces. Add the figs and, if you're using them, the bacon. Bring this to a simmer, cover it, and cook it at a low heat for an hour.

You CAN, if you like a thicker sauce, take the cover off and cook it exposed for the last fifteen minutes. But if you do this, keep an eye out to make sure that things do not scorch. It is very easy to do this (trust me on that point). After the hour, your sauce will be reduced, your chicken cooked through, the figs soft, the bacon infused with the flavor, and you'll be ready to dance up a samba that is unbelievable.

Well, maybe not the samba, but you get my point.

I cannot imagine serving this with anything other than yellow rice; however, I will be serving it over spinach pasta tomorrow, as my puppies come back from a trip to Argentina. I have missed them terribly, and it will be wonderful just to be sitting opposite them and seeing THEM, rather than my memories of them, for the first time in two weeks.

This is the perfect dish for this kind of "reunion." You can make it, store it, and reheat it, so when your missing ones come back, you can spend time with them, rather than with the food in the kitchen.

The dinner will be this chicken, pasta (perhaps jerusalem artichokes if Snoops wants them), some broccoli, a salad, and an ice cream parfait of tangerine sorbet, and vanilla caramel ice cream.

And I made cookies for you boys too. Your favorites. Welcome back home