Apricot Slow Cooker Chicken
Some women are wooed with flowers. Others with chocolate. My husband wooed me with chicken. Yep. I'm that type of girl. A chicken dish won me over. He invited me to his studio apartment for a homemade dinner. I found the fact that he had cut up chicken and green peppers unbelievably sexy.
When I walked up the steps of the brownstone into his tiny apartment with distressed exposed brick walls, the chicken stew smelled incredible. We ate it on floor, leaning on a faux marble formica coffee table clearly inherited from his parents when they remodeled the 70s out of their home. We shared the same green plastic bowl, feeding each other the sweet and tangy chicken. It was unquestionably the most romantic meal I'd ever had.
Six months later, I moved into that tiny apartment. Didn't I mention that I'm that kind of girl? On special occasions, I made the chicken dish myself, but once I got the recipe, the romance vanished. Other than the chicken, all the ingredients were highly processed, dehydrated onion soup processed, and the recipe simply consisted of dumping it all together and letting it cook for an hour. I still made it, but I didn't love it in the same way, and complained that it left a chemical taste in my mouth. After a few years, I banished the recipe in favor of Beef Bourguignon Stew, and also got rid of the faux marble coffee table and stuffed hammerhead shark.
A few years later, looking for a quick and easy dish to whip up for some visiting relatives, Steve suggested that we make the Druckman chicken. Too tired to look for another idea, I agreed, on one condition: I would remake the dish to not be so processed. We didn't eat the dish on the floor, but it tasted just as sweet and delicious as it had in our Upper West Side brownstone years ago. The sweet and sour chicken stew that brought us together is now back in our repertoire, and here to stay.
Apricot Slow Cooker Chicken
This sweet and tangy slow cooker chicken dish comes together easily and will please the entire family. It tastes like sunshine.
Ingredients
- 1 cup of Apricot Jam
- 1 1/2 lbs chicken breast
- 1 tbsp butter
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1/4 cup soy sauce
- 1/4 cup mirin
- 1/4 cup rice wine vinegar
- 1 tsp ginger powder
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 1 onion, minced
- 1 cup green pepper, coarsely chopped into 1 inch cubes
Instructions
- Mince your onion and your garlic.
- Cut the chicken into 1 inch dice.
- In a slow cooker with a sear function, or in a dutch oven, melt the butter with the olive oil.
- Add the onion and garlic and saute until soft for about 5 minutes.
- Add the chicken, stir well to mix. Saute the chicken until lightly browned on all sides.
- Toss in the diced green pepper.
- Add the soy sauce, mirin, and rice wine vinegar. Add the jam. Stir thoroughly to dissolve the jam.
- Season with ginger.
- Cook on low heat for 3 hours or high heat for 1 hour.
- Serve with rice.