Gingered Marmalade Chicken

I am not a great fan of chicken breasts when they are not attached to the bird. I always think they lack flavour on their own. In their favour they are a quick and simple meal so I am always on the lookout for tasty ways to prepare them. This is a winner. Very quick to prepare and looks so pretty on a plate. It ticks all my boxes and is made with a fair amount of regularity in my kitchen. I have added a few variations at the end of the recipe so it is handy to use up any of those Christmas preserves.


Adapted from Good Food Magazine

Gingered Marmalade Chicken

Ingredients

4 chicken breasts
1 tablespoon of olive or other oil
250mls hot chicken stock
4 tablespoons fine cut marmalade
1teaspoon fresh thyme leaves or 1/2 a teaspoon of dried
1/2 teaspoon of ground ginger
Grated rind and juice of an orange

Method

Heat the oil in a deep frying pan and fry the chicken for about 8 minutes until golden on each side.
Add the stock, orange juice and grated rind,marmalade, herbs and ginger.
Stir well to mix then simmer for five minutes, spooning the sauce over the chicken as it cooks.
Remove the chicken and boil the sauce hard until reduced to a syrup.
return the chicken to the pan and turn the pieces in the sauce until they become glazed.
Serve hot spooning any remaing sauce over them.

I like to serve with mashed potatoes and a salad but they would be equally good with rice.

Some Variations

Use cranberry jam/jelly instead of the marmalade replacing the ginger with cinnamon.

Use chilli jam leaving out the orange juice and rind (just increase the amount of stock) but adding some finely chopped sweet pepper. You can add some dried chilli flakes for extra heat

Plum Jam with finely chopped prunes and cinnamon is also good.

The variations are endless depending what you have in your store cupboard.