Braised Chicken with Port Fig Reduction

The inspiration for dinner last night was the beautiful, plump figs that I hadn't had a chance to use yet. I wanted to use them in a more creative way than just stuffing with goat cheese or topping a pizza, and decided on a sauce for chicken thighs.

I started by removing the skin from each thigh, rinsing and patting dry. The thighs were then dredged in flour and browned on each side in a mix of butter and olive oil over medium high heat.  I then lowered the heat to medium and added one half of a lemon, thinly sliced, quartered figs and thinly sliced red onion. Next I poured a mixture of dry white wine (3/4 cup), port wine (1/3 cup) and balsamic vinegar (1/4 cup) over the chicken, covered the pan and allowed to simmer for about 15 minutes, turning the chicken occasionally. Once the chicken was fully cooked, I removed the chicken from the pan and set aside. The heat was brought to medium high and the sauce boiled until thickened and slightly reduced. To finish, I added 1/2 cup of heavy cream and placed the chicken back into the pan, turning to coat in the sauce and removed from the heat.

To serve with the chicken, I made green beans (simply boiled until heated through and sprinkled with garlic seasoning) and herbed mashed potatoes.  I made the potatoes by adding cream cheese, heavy cream, finely chopped fresh parsley, fresh thyme, butter, salt and fresh ground black pepper to cooked, mashed potatoes.

I have to say, the entire meal took less than half an hour to make and if you like sweet dishes, then you would definitely enjoy this one. I myself am not a huge fan of the grittyness of the figs, but aside from that, I really liked it and thought the flavors went very well together. Dylan enjoyed it so much that she ate the remaining potatoes and helped herself to more chicken. She thought that the fig sauce was delicious and probably would have licked her plate and the pan clean if I would have let her!