Single Malt Chicken

Single Malt Chicken! It’s a very strange name but believe me this is the juiciest packed with flavours chicken you will ever eat!

Let’s talk about Single Malt Scotch Whiskeys  for a moment. There is a famous quote by Sir Winston Churchill,  “The water was not fit to drink. To make it palatable, we had to add whiskey. By diligent effort, I learned to like it.”  I remember the first time I had single malt, (was a long time ago when I was quite young) I remember adding a lot of water so I could bare drink it but as I grew old as Mr. Churchill said I did learn to like it.

I don’t drink bourbon or blended whiskeys. I love and really enjoy my Single Malts from Scotland. There are some specific ones me and my husband enjoy and some of them are Ardbeg, Lagavulin and Askaig. But since I moved to Singapore I have almost stopped drinking it, as I don’t enjoy it as much as I did in Japan in cold weather.

Fast forward to this recipe, a few weeks ago I had some leftover marinated chicken in the freezer but I didn’t want to make the same old grilled chicken. This is how I came up with this Single Malt Chicken.

I was thinking of adding wine but my husband isn’t a big fan of wine flavoured chicken and I didn’t have wine all I had was some Ardbeg, which has the most amazing smokey flavour and deep taste! I decided to make the chicken with it and tell you what, it was fantastic. I also took a bit of the chicken, it was smokey, juicy and delicious.

To make this chicken, you need to marinate the chicken at least for 8 hours the longer the better. And you need to add smokey single malt like Ardbeg, Lagavulin, Laphroaig 10 or Talisker as it is the star ingredient of the dish.

I served this chicken with pearl couscous but you can serve it rice as well.

Instructions:

Heat oil, add onion and sauté for 10 minutes on a low flame till it becomes golden.

Add in the chicken and fry till brown. Add in the spice powders, salt and butter, coat the chicken well.

Add ½ cup single malt and sauté on a high flame and add water. Cook till the chicken is almost done.

Add in the rest ½ cup single malt in and cook till it evaporates.

Garnish with coriander and mint.

Serve with rice or couscous.