Honey Mustard Chicken and Apples

The following recipe is brought to you by the October Food Network Magazine!

While flipping through my latest issue of the Food Network Magazine, I came across this recipe and decided to try it.

My husband and I sometimes get a honey mustard chicken and pasta dish when we go to the diner so I wondered if it was similar. It is, but not entirely. The one in the diner is much sweeter, and I guess the honey mustard I have in the house has a different taste. Either way, it was good, and something we'll keep around for sure.

It takes about 40 minutes total to make.

Ingredients:
8 skin-on, bone in chicken thighs (2 to 2.5 pounds)
salt to taste
pepper to taste
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion cut into chunks
2 cooking apples (ex: Cortland), cut into chunks
1 cup low sodium chicken broth
2 to 3 tablespoons honey mustard
1 1/2 teaspoons unsalted butter, softened
1 tablespoon flour
1 to 2 tablespoons roughly chopped fresh parsley

** Stay tuned below for ALL the changes I made to the ingredients!!

Directions:
Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.

Season the chicken with salt and pepper to taste. Heat olive oil in large ovenproof skillet over medium-high heat.

Working in batches if necessary, add the chicken skin side down and cook until golden, about 6 minutes. Flip and cook 2-3 more minutes, then transfer to plate. Pour off all but 2 tablespoons of the drippings.


Add the onion and apples to the skillet and lightly season with salt and pepper. Cook until slightly softened, about 4 minutes.


Mix the broth with the mustard, then add to the skillet and bring to a boil Arrange the chicken, skin side up, in the skillet.


Transfer to the oven and roast until chicken is cooked through - about 15-20 minutes.


Mix the butter and flour to form a paste.

Use a slotted spoon to transfer the chicken, apples and onion to a plate and bring the pan juices to a simmer. Whisk in about half of the butter-flour mixture and boil to thicken, 2 minutes. Continue to cook, adding more of the butter-flour mixture as needed to make a slightly thick gravy. Season with salt and pepper.

Pour over chicken and sprinkle with parsley.


Now, that sounds good, right? Well, we are not the biggest fans of chicken thighs so we actually just used boneless chicken breasts. They obviously cooked a lot faster in the skillet and we only left them in the oven for maybe 10 minutes at the most - our chicken breasts were thin sliced. Tasted good to us!

We also used Macintosh apples, mostly because they were incredibly on sale today at the store. I also halved the recipe, which was pretty easy to do.

Oh, and be careful when taking the skillet out of the oven. I used a pot holder to take it out, and then promptly touched the handle like, 2 minutes later to stir something! Ouch! Needless to say I have a little blister on one finger now. And to make matters worse, I did it another time too.. guess I didn't learn!

It was a very tasty dinner and we had a side of rice.

Give it a shot!