duck-shaped pain

Braised Chicken With Onions [1]

• A lot of onions. The recipe called for six, but I used four, and that was more than adequate. Choose big round yellow onions.

• 2 to 3 pounds of chicken parts. I used thighs (cheap), but legs and wings and possibly breasts would also be okay. I found that 4 thighs (2 1/2 lbs o' chicken) was all that would fit in my pot.

• Spice mixture: 2 tablespoons ground ginger, 2 teaspoons salt, 2 teaspoons black pepper, all mixed together.

• Several cloves of garlic.

• 1 to 1/2 cups water.

• Random herbs: I had some sage leaves and rosemary around, so I used those.

1. Slice the onions fairly thinly, about 1/8th of an inch or so, if you're especially handy with a knife. If you're not, just get the onions into small pieces somehow. They're going to cook down a lot, so it doesn't really matter too much what they look like in the beginning.

2. Place half of the onions in a big Dutch oven or other big heavy pan with a lid. Spread them out so that they are even across the bottom of the pot. Stick the garlic cloves and the herbs in with the onions as well.

3. Pour the spice mixture onto a plate, and spread it around the surface of said plate. Take your chicken parts, one at a time, and roll them on the spice mixture so that all sides of the given chicken part are covered with the spice mixture. Then place the parts on the top of the onions in the pot.

4. Place the remaining onions on top of the chicken. Pour the water over the whole mess (yes, it will look like there won't be adequate water at first, but trust me, it will work out).

5. Place the lid on the pot and cook at medium-low heat for two hours or so. Stir occasionally. Take out the garlic before eating (boiled garlic = not good). Serve in bowls or on rice. If there is any cooking liquid left over after eating, strain it and you will have a nice spicy oniony chicken broth to use for something else.

And that's it. It was very warm and good, nice food for what turned out to be a pretty cold night last night (after being 70 in the afternoon). My one mistake was using some ground ginger which had to be around 15 years old -- it came in some old metal spice can that you rarely see these days, and I don't remember my mom ever using it, and it was in the very back of one of the cabinets, so it actually may have been older than me. Use fresh spices, people.

[1] Adapted from the Braised Hen with Onions recipe in The Supper Book, a cookbook I picked up at last weekend's book sale.

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