Orange Braised Chicken Thighs with Green Olives

I've been making this dish for a few years now. It's simple and easy to prepare, with a great return on flavor. I made some slight modifications to the original recipe, which appeared in Gourmet magazine in 1995 (and later on epicurious.com).

Ingredients:

• 4 chicken thighs with skin
• 2 teaspoons olive oil
• 3 or 4 large garlic cloves, minced
• 1 medium onion, sliced thin
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon dry thyme
• 1 cup fresh orange juice
• 1 fresh lemon, juiced
• 1/2 cup green olives, cut in quarters
• 1 cup chicken stock (optional)

Directions:

1. Rinse chicken and pat dry. Season chicken with salt and pepper. In a heavy skillet heat oil over moderately high heat until hot but not smoking and brown chicken, transferring as browned to a plate.
2. Pour off all but about 1 tablespoon fat from pan. Reduce heat to moderate and in skillet cook onion, stirring, until pale golden. Add garlic just as onions begin to brown stirring, until golden.
3. Stir in cumin, citrus juices, and salt and pepper to taste and add chicken and olives. 
4. Simmer chicken, covered, 25 minutes, or until tender. Turn the chicken after 15 minute.
5. Remove chicken and reduce sauce by about 1/3.  Taste the sauce and adjust if it needs more juice (lemon or orange). If the sauce becomes too thick, chicken stock can be used to thin it out.

The sauce is slightly briny and deliciously rich with a mildly sweet flavor from the orange and lemon juices, balanced by an earthiness that the cumin and garlic provide. It can get a bit too salty however if you add extra olives, so try not to go overboard. And while I'm on the topic of olives, it's important to use quality olives with good flavor (canned will not do here, but that goes without saying) because the olives create the base of the sauce and if their flavor isn't appealing the whole dish will be off.

Pairings:

Serve with Turmeric Rice with Raisins or even some plain white rice. For a vegetable try Roasted Cauliflower with a little drizzle of lemon or Green Beans with Shallots and Thyme. And of course a nice dry white wine would work nicely here as well.

If more sauce is needed for leftovers (should you even have any) prepare a mix of orange juice (2/3 cup), chicken stock (2/3 cup), cumin (1/2 teaspoon), thyme (1/4 teaspoon), and chopped olives (1/4 cup); heat until reduced by about half.

Enjoy!