It’s All About the Apples
You may have noticed that my last three chicken recipes all involve apples (Rosemary-Guinness Chicken, Roasted Curry-Coconut Chicken, and Roasted Honey-Soy Chicken with Ginger). Apparently this isn’t a common combination, because some were surprised when I served up my second Roasted Curry-Coconut Chicken this Sunday for lunch.
I absolutely love roasted meat with apples. They get all soft, and soak up the juices from the meat. Love. Them.
It all goes back to when I was a kid, and a pretty picky eater. (I could go into the details, but it’s kind of embarrassing to me at this age. I actually refused to eat fresh tomatoes until I was about 22. Mushrooms until 24. I’ll just stop there.) Among other dreaded food items, I hated pork. And I still hate pork, with the occasional exception of very crunchy bacon. As in, so crunchy it’s almost burnt.
Anyway, way back then, my mother used to make pork chops with apples. Again, I hated pork chops. Hated. Them. They were one of those foods I would chew and chew and chew, hoping somehow they would magically dissolve and I wouldn’t have to actually swallow them. Of course, that never occurred. (It didn’t happen with raw carrots, either.) But the apples in this dish were so delicious that they made tolerating the pork chops so much easier.
And so when I recently started roasting my free range chickens every week, it only seemed obvious that I should toss some apples into the roasting pan. If pork chops with apples tasted good to me as a kid, I must say that roasted chicken with apples is absolutely divine. On Sunday, I actually left the potatoes out and added more apples because I love them so much.
So thanks, Mom, for the recipe inspiration!
