Coriander Crusted Chicken W/Crispy Chickpeas & Pomegranate

Amarante

Fri, Feb 05 2021, 11:35 am

This was a very good and relatively easy chicken dish. It combined veggies plus a a complex carb plus the protein and cooked in one pan. I did add a bagged tossed green salad just to round the meal out. The sheet pan recipes are right up my alley as it minimizes having to cook lots of separate things.

You can get pomegranate seeds already seeded but it's not that hard to do it yourself. The trick is to do it in a bowl of water in the sink to minimize mess. I do have pomegranate molasses but it's actually only pomegranate juice that is cooked down so that it is thicker and syrupy with a more intense flavor.

I did use bone in thighs and drumsticks.

The mint leaves added a really nice note.

I did add the Kale Crown which is essentially just Kale leaves added towards the end. If anyone wants the recipe I can add it.

I have an old coffee grinder that I use to grind spices - it was inexpensive - it is not the fancy kind but the small kind that is even smaller than a mini-food processor. I got mine years ago when I used to grind coffee.

This cookbook has a lot of recipes which I have marked to try out since I do like sheet pan cooking. Very Happy

Coriander Crusted Chicken With Crispy Chickpeas and Pomegranate (Sheetpan)

Excerpt From: Cathy Erway - Sheet Pan Chicken

Skin-on chicken doesn’t need a whole lot of seasoning besides salt to roast into a magazine-worthy crisp golden shell. But sometimes it’s really fun to give it a whole lot of seasoning in addition to that simple rub of salt (or to replace the crust and flavor you’d get from the skin, if you want to use boneless, skinless breasts). This changes the texture game completely. I’ve crushed up whole spices and sesame seeds to create a coarse, grainy surface for the chicken—if you’re using boneless cuts, you’ll get some crust on top in lieu of that skin. Combined with crispy chickpeas and juicy bursts from the pomegranate seeds as a finishing surprise, this is like a Simone Biles floor routine of flavor and texture: a perfect ten.

Serves 3 or 4

1 tablespoon coriander seeds
1 teaspoon whole black peppercorns
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 tablespoon sesame seeds
1½ to 2 pounds bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs or breasts or boneless, skinless thighs or breasts
4 to 6 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 teaspoons salt, plus a pinch
½ head cauliflower, cut into florets (about 4 cups; see Note)
1 cup canned chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 lemon, halved
Crispy Kale Crown (this page; optional)
½ cup pomegranate seeds
¼ cup pomegranate molasses (or use the juice of ½ lemon, if you can’t find the molasses)
¼ cup fresh mint leaves, coarsely chopped

Preheat the oven to 450°F.

Combine the coriander seeds, peppercorns, and cumin seeds in a dry saucepan and toast over high heat, shaking the pan around continuously, for 1 to 2 minutes, until very fragrant. Immediately transfer the seeds to a spice grinder or a mortar and grind or crush them very coarsely. Transfer the spice mixture to a small bowl and stir in the sesame seeds.

Coat the chicken pieces with about 1 tablespoon of the olive oil and season with 1 teaspoon of the salt. Place the crushed spices on a flat plate. Press the skin or top of the chicken piece against the spices to adhere and create a spice crust. Arrange the chicken, spice crust up, on a sheet pan.

Toss the cauliflower florets in a large bowl with 1 to 2 tablespoons of the olive oil and 1 teaspoon of the salt. Scatter the cauliflower in between the chicken pieces on the pan. In the same bowl, toss the chickpeas with the remaining 1 to 2 tablespoons of olive oil and remaining pinch of salt and scatter them over the pan. Roast for 20 minutes, then rotate the sheet pan and toss the cauliflower. Add the lemon halves cut side-down to the pan. Roast for another 15 to 20 minutes (or just 5 to 10 minutes more, if using boneless chicken), until the tops of the chicken pieces are browned and a kitchen thermometer inserted into the thickest part close to a bone registers 160°F. If adding a Crispy Kale Crown, prepare the kale according to instructions on this page and add it during the last 10 to 15 minutes of roasting.

Scatter the pomegranate seeds over the pan, drizzle with the pomegranate molasses, shower with the mint, and serve.

Note If you’re using boneless chicken, cut your cauliflower florets into smaller pieces, halving or quartering them lengthwise so that no pieces are thicker than 1 inch. If you’re using bone-in chicken, you can leave the florets in larger, uniformly sized pieces.