WetLeather Recipe Database - food for bikers

Name:	Chicken with Dried Cherries and Hazelnuts	Contributor:	Gretchen Johns
Description:	Chicken with Dried Cherries & Hazelnuts	Posted:	2002-01-29
Key words:	heavy cream, chicken	Category:	Main Dishes
ID:	602	Updated:	2006-01-10 11:39:57
Ingredients:	6 chicken breasts 1/2 c cherry juice 1/4 c dried cherries 1 c heavy cream 1/4 c hazelnut pieces, divided 1/8 tsp cinnamon oil/melted butter (I actually used olive oil, which isn't too Viking, but any oil would work)
Preparation:	Three days before you wish to serve the dish, put the cherries in a plastic or glass container, cover them with the cream. Cover, and leave in the refrigerator. (Ziplock bags work very well for this.) Two days prior to the meal, add the cinnamon and stir it in. The day before, take the chicken breasts and marinate them in the cherry juice. The day you wish to have the dinner, preheat your oven to 325. Toast the hazelnut pieces until golden brown. Take the chicken and drain off the cherry juice. Saute the chicken with a drizzle of olive oil in a skillet until nicely browned. You aren't trying to cook the chicken all the way through - only give them a little color, and seal in the juices. Then, take the pieces and place them in a baking dish. Sprinkle the sauted chicken with 1/2 of the toasted hazelnuts, cover the baking dish with aluminum foil and bake at 325 for 1 hour. Right before the chicken comes out of the over, take the cream/cherry mixture out of the 'fridge and stir it until it is of a smooth consistency. If it is too thick, thin it with a little more cream. When the chicken is done, let it cool, just a little, then cover it with the cream sauce and sprinkle with the remaining hazelnuts. Serve it forth!
Notes:
Equipment:	I recently did a Viking feast for the last Calontir crown tournament. I had some popular recipes I thought I'd share with everyone. This recipe is an original of mine. I did research into the ingredients available to the average Norse person would have, then this idea occurred to me. All of the following would have been available to the early period Scandinavians with the exception of the cinnamon that would have had to come north via trade routes.