Ale-Braised Chicken

I figure you've seen enough people posts for a minute.  On with some food!

This recipe came out of the October issue of the Better Homes magazine.  Have I mentioned lately how much I love fall food?  Uh-lot.

Here's the recipe with my notes:

Brown Ale-Braised Chicken

1 Tbsp packed brown sugar
1/2 Tbsp chili powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1/4 tsp crushed red pepper
8 skin-on chicken thighs (I used a mix of thighs and drumsticks)
1 Tbsp vegetable oil
1 medium onion, sliced
2 stalks celery, chopped
8 small whole carrots with tops, peeled
   and top trimmed to 1 inch (I just cut up some regular carrots)
2 Tbsp all-purpose flour
1 12-oz bottle brown ale (or whatever you've got on hand)
1/2 C chicken stock
4 cloves garlic, peeled (I threw in a few extra)
   Coarsely chopped celery leaves
   Fresh thyme

Preheat oven to 350.  In a small bowl combine brown sugar, chili powder, salt, pepper, and crushed red pepper; rub into chicken.  Let stand 10 minutes. (I threw mine back in the fridge until I was ready to start dinner.)

In an extra-large ovenproof skillet heat oil over medium-high heat.  Add chicken; cook until well browned on both sides and skin is crispy.  Remove chicken from skillet.  Drain fat, reserving 1 Tbsp.

In the same skillet cook and stir the onion, celery, and carrots in the reserved fat about 5 minutes or until tender.  Stir in flour; cook and stir 1 minute.  Stir in beer and broth.  Bring to a simmer.  Return chicken to skillet.  Add garlic.  Cover and bake 40 minutes.  Sprinkle with celery leaves and thyme. 

Here it is out of the oven at my house:

The only thing I'd do differently is, thicken up the sauce a bit more so it's more gravy-like.

You could add more flour in the steps above, or like I did with the leftovers the next night, pull the chicken when it's done, thicken up the sauce on the stove, then throw the chicken back in.

Either way, this was some good stuff.

We had ours with roasted acorn squash and mashed potatoes.

Here's dinner on my plate:

 And this is what happens when you're the child of a blogger:

Yep, toy camera photos of her dinner.

I'm creating a monster.