Apricot Chicken Curry

I didn’t think I would like this recipe because of the “curry” in it but I changed the recipe a little bit to make sure it wasn’t too “curryish.” It was delicious!

Ingredients

• 6 chicken drumsticks (the recipe called for 8 but I used 6)
• Salt & pepper to taste
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 3 cloves of minced garlic
• 4 cups of Apricot Nectar
• 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes, or to taste
• 1 teaspoon cornstarch
• 1 tablespoon water
• 1 teaspoon curry powder
• 1 cup dried apricots
• 1 large onion, roughly chopped
• 1 large green bell pepper, roughly chopped
• 4 carrots thinly sliced
• 1 fresh poblano chile (original recipe asked for chile pepper)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. After cleaning, season the chicken drumsticks with salt and pepper to your taste then set aside.
3. Heat olive oil in a large oven-safe skillet over medium heat.
4. Stir in the garlic and red pepper flakes and heat through until the garlic is soft, approximately 3 minutes. Place the seasoned drumsticks in the skillet and brown the chicken on all sides. About 5 minutes each side (turn occasionally so they don’t burn).
5. Once the chicken is browned, put the skillet with everything in it in the oven.
6. Bake the chicken until it is no longer pink – about 10-13 minutes.
7. While the chicken is baking, bring the apricot nectar to a boil in a large pot over medium high heat. Reduce heat after boiling to medium low.
8. Mix the cornstarch and water to make a paste.
9. Add the cornstarch mixture and the curry powder into the apricot nectar.
10. Add the dry apricots.
11. Once the drumsticks are ready, remove them from the oven and add them to the apricot nectar mixture.
12. Heat the skillet that the drumsticks were in over medium heat. (It should still have the pieces of garlic in it.)
13. Add the onion, pepper, carrots and 1/4 of the diced poblano pepper to the skillet and stir until the onion softens.
14. Add the vegetable mixture to the apricot mixture and stir.
15. Cover the pot and simmer for about 10-15 minutes or until the vegetables are tender.

The original recipe calls for water chestnuts but I decided not to use them.

What I learned:

Even though the poblano pepper is considered a mild pepper, it is still hot! If you decide to cut the pepper and remove the seeds with your hands, please make sure you clean your hands thoroughly. After removing the seeds, I “tasted” the cut pepper and it had the flavor of the seed (hot!). Be careful when working with peppers.

Enjoy!

(The original recipe that I changed a bit is from allrecipes.com and can be found by clicking here.)