Don’t Be Chicken, Try Something New!

One day I was telling one of my Italian friends about my family’s chicken burger recipe (ketchup and kosher duck sauce, “Saucy Susan.”) She told me that it sounded interesting, and then also added that she has heard of other kosher recipes that use ingredients that she doesn't place together in the same dish. Of particular note was a chicken recipe that included cranberry sauce, Lipton onion soup mix and Catalina dressing. That sounded good. I knew that my family’s brisket recipe included cranberry sauce and onion soup mix, so how much worse could anything taste with some Catalina dressing?

So after hearing about this recipe for several years, I finally got around to trying it. Twice.

It only has a few ingredients:

Chicken drumsticks and boneless thighs. I bought a package of each and asked the butcher to remove the skin.
Two cans of Ocean Spray whole berry cranberry sauce.
Lipton onion soup mix.
Kraft Fat Free Catalina dressing. I think the original recipe calls for full fat dressing, but I don’t like to add unnecessary calories.

Round 1
I placed the chicken pieces in a baking dish and covered it with two cans of cranberry sauce. Then, I added the onion soup mix. It started to smell very oniony, so I only used half the package. I also only used half the bottle of Catalina dressing. I baked the chicken at 375-400 degrees for about an hour (use a meat thermometer; I just bought the cool meat thermometer where you insert the thermometer in the meat while cooking it and it beeps when the meat is done. It attaches to a device that you leave outside the oven. Yes, it is $20 but I’ve invested more than that in crappy meat thermometers that do not last too long. Also if you have a Bed Bath and Beyond coupon it is definitely worth it). Turn the pieces over about 30 minutes through--use tongs!

I liked the sauce, but the chicken was a bit tough. I had also marinated the chicken in the ingredients overnight before cooking. I knew I could do better, so I tried again.

Round 2
This time, I only used one can of cranberry sauce, and the rest of the Lipton soup mix and dressing. I also left the skin on. I baked it at about 375 for an hour, but it wasn’t getting done, so I turned the oven up to 425 for the last 15-20 minutes. The sauce was a lot more oniony, so if you are going to try this and you are not the biggest onion fan (I’m not), you might want to try it with only a quarter of the Lipton package. However, I would suggest definitely leaving the skin on to cook the chicken and then taking it off before you eat it. If you like the skin and think I’m crazy, let me tell you this: chicken without the skin has about one-two grams of fat, and chicken with the skin has about 15-22 grams PER PIECE.

Let me give a shout out to Brigitte, who shared this recipe with me from her mother-in-law, Joan. Thanks everyone!