Kotopoulo Sto Fourno

Oven Baked Chicken

The recipe called for one large Chicken cut into six pieces but I only had chicken thighs so I substituted

Ingredients

1 large chicken
1 cup corn oil
2 cups sliced onion
2 cups of sliced mushrooms
4 slices of smoked bacon
1/2 cup of white wine
1/3 cup of hot water
1 stick of cinnamon
salt and pepper.

I left out the cinnamon because I didn't want to shock my family's tastebuds too much.

I started by washing the drying the chicken and then browned it in a skillet.

  The chicken was then set aside in a baking dish.

I sliced the onions and mushroom while the chicken was cooking and the mushrooms went into the pan next.

Beautifully browned and ready to go

The mushrooms were removed from the pan and put on top of the chicken.  Then, it was time for the onions

I cut the bacon into one inch pieces and they went into the pan with the onions as soon as the onions were softened.

Once the bacon was cooked, in went the white wine and water. I should take a moment to explain that my husband and I are not wine drinkers so I had to forage to find a bottle of white wine.  It was kind of old and had little bits of something floating in it.  I used a coffee filter to clean it up and after using my 1/2 cup, the rest went down the sink.  Before tossing it, I looked at the bottle.  It was from Nicosia Cyprus.  We had brought it back from our honeymoon when we were married 16 years ago!  I told you we were not big wine drinkers.

Once the wine and water came to a boil, the mixture was poured over the chicken.

I had made one tactical error.  I should have put the chicken, and subsequent ingredients into a dutch over rather than a baking dish.  The recipe called for the dish to be baked covered for the first 25 minutes.  I resorted to aluminum foil and put it int he oven at 325 degrees.

The recipe calls for removing the lid after 20 minutes so that the chicken can absorb most of the juice.  That part didn't happen as well as I expected. I did remove the foil and I did bake it an addition 20 minutes but the bacon did not get crunchy and the juice did not reduce as I had expected. but it was still pretty

During cooking, I had gotten caught up in a phone call so I never got around to making any side dishes.  Plus we are out of just about everything.  I think potatoes or rice would have been very nice with this dish but we had to settle for a can of green beans.

The Reviews

I thoroughly enjoyed the dish.  There was just enough of the flavor of the wine and the chicken was cooked perfectly.  I thought that the bacon could have been a bit less chewy and the sauce could have been thicker.

The kids initially said they liked it but ended up eating very little.  My son ended up sneaking a peanut butter and jelly sandwich later.

I forgot to mention that the whole reason that I am doing the cooking and can experiment with it is that my husband is working evenings and won't be home for dinner.  Well, when he came home, he looked at the remnants (which did not include any of the chicken) and declared that they smelled delicious.  He asked that I save him a plate next time.