I know I said I wasn’t going to post anything else Christmas-y on the blog this month. However, I couldn’t help myself.
All you Christmas celebrants — have you planned your Christmas menu yet? I finally decided what we should make…mostly. I always have second, third, and fourth thoughts about the menu.
If you’re like me and still weighing your options…CONGRATS. You’re now done. Because this Raspberry Thyme Chicken is the perfect Christmas meal.
It was pretty obvious that my book-inspired recipe for Meet Me at the Museum was going to have to include one of two things: chicken, or raspberries. Tina is always talking to Anders about tending the chickens she raises, and both Tina and Anders mention picking raspberries a lot. If you look at the book, you’ll see that raspberries are even featured on the front cover. Clearly, there’s a theme.
After some debate on whether to focus on raspberries or chicken as the main ingredient, I decided to throw caution to the wind and make a recipe using both. This was a bit of a challenge since I had to balance the sweet and the savory, but… #humblebrag … I freakin’ nailed it with this Raspberry Thyme Chicken.
You start off cooking the chicken like you would for my Tarragon Chicken – salt and pepper, pan-sear the chicken breasts (this time with shallots), then finish cooking them on the stove with steam. Once the chicken is cooked, you remove it to a plate and make the sauce in the same pan. So easy.
The relatively basic (but still flavorful) chicken serves to highlight the real star of this dish: THE SAUCE. It’s both sweet and tangy, glossy and glistening, and it just screams “we are celebrating tonight.” Its jewel-like tones come from ingredients you probably already have in your pantry — raspberry jam and balsamic vinegar — and it jazzes up anything you put on the plate.
My preferred raspberry jam is from Bittersweet Herb Farm; I buy way too many jars of it at the myriad craft fairs I attend throughout the year. For my money, there’s not a better raspberry jam on the market.
I used their red raspberry jam in this dish, but I quickly discovered a slight downside to it. After crunching through a bit of my dinner, I decided that seedless raspberry jam is probably the way to go for this dish. So, use seedless if you can, but don’t worry if you can’t.
I usually use an aged balsamic vinegar when I’m cooking, but this time I used store-bought vinegar. My preferred vinegar is thick and slightly sweet, but I wanted something a little lighter to thin out the jam, and also something sharp and acidic to cut the sweetness of the sauce. So, plain ol’ balsamic vinegar was perfect.
I also sauteed some shallots to help the savory balance out the sweet, and I added thyme because, really, what savory dish isn’t better with thyme?
The end result was a sauce that’s deliciously raspberry with a slightly tangy kick from the balsamic. The thyme brings a fresh, earthy flavor to the dish, and the sautéed shallots – most of which become caramelized – lend their own savory richness to the fruity sauce. You don’t really taste the ground cloves in the recipe, but the spice rounds out the overall flavor, giving it a warm, wintry essence.
Make this for your holiday meal. You’ll fool all your relatives into thinking you slaved hours over a hot stove for their benefit. This recipe serves 3-4, but it can be easily doubled to feed a larger group. It’s paired here with regular ol’ mashed potatoes, but I imagine it would be tasty with all different kinds of sides, like some pasta or my Herbed Couscous.
Despite the rich, luxurious sauce, this chicken dish is surprisingly light, which means you’ll still have plenty of room for all those Christmas cookies after The Big Meal.
Finally, the clincher: I made this recipe on my lunch hour. My lunch hour. That means I went from prep to serve in one hour! You can’t beat that, folks. Especially at the most stressful — I mean, wonderful time of the year.
Raspberry Thyme Chicken
Ingredients
- 1 lb skinless, boneless chicken breasts
- 1 tbsp unsalted butter
- 1 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
- 2/3 cup raspberry jam, seedless preferred
- 1.5 tbsp chopped fresh thyme
- 3 tsp balsamic vinegar
- 1 shallot, chopped
- 1/4 tsp ground cloves
- 2 tbsp water or chicken broth
- salt, to taste
- ground peper, to taste
Instructions
PREP INSTRUCTIONS
- Chop shallot and set aside.
- Chop fresh thyme and set aside.
- Mix raspberry jam, balsamic vinegar, and ground cloves in small bowl until combined, then set aside.
- Generously sprinkle both sides of chicken breasts with salt and pepper, then set aside.
COOKING INSTRUCTIONS
- Heat butter and olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat.
- Add about ½ the chopped shallots to the pan and stir to coat. Let cook 1-2 minutes, then add the chicken breasts to the pan. Sear until golden brown on one side, about 5-6 minutes. Then flip and sear the other side, about 2-3 minutes.
- Add 2 tbsp of water to the pan, cover, and reduce heat to medium-low and cook for about 10 minutes, until chicken is cooked through.
- Once chicken is cooked through, remove from pan onto a plate; keep warm.
- Add the remaining shallots to the drippings in the pan. Stir to coat, increase heat to medium, and let shallots cook about 2-3 minutes. Then reduce heat to low and add the chopped thyme. Sautee another 1-2 minutes, stirring constantly, until thyme is fragrant.
- Add the jam mixture to the pan and stir to combine with shallots and thyme. Bring to a simmer on low heat, then simmer gently for 3-4 minutes, stirring often.
- Add the cooked chicken back into the pan, along with any juices on the plate. Stir sauce until combined, and turn chicken breasts over in sauce to coat. Let simmer another 3-5 minutes until chicken is warmed through.
- Serve immediately with generous helpings of sauce.
