Savory with a fresh, light finish: Belgian Chicken with Juniper Berries

Juniper berries and genever (or regular gin) give simple pan-roasted chicken a sharp, clean flavor. Recipe below.

WE ARE ESPECIALLY MISSING LIBRARIES THESE DAYS, wanting to just go in and browse the shelves and find unexpected treasures. The Chicago public libraries have reopened, but we don’t yet feel safe going in buildings that aren’t our house. The upside, if there is one, is that the library just keeps renewing things we currently have checked out. So we keep getting to enjoy a live Miles Davis double album on vinyl. And a wonderfully comforting Belgian cookbook.

We’ve already shared Cream of Belgian Endive Soup from the Everybody Eats Well in Belgium Cookbook. And because this lovely cookbook by Ruth Van Waerebeek has been sheltering in place with us for months now, we occasionally pick it up, flip through it and find something else we want to try.

Surrounded by France, the Netherlands, Germany and Luxembourg, Belgium has three official languages: French, Dutch and German. In the book, Van Waerebeek names her dishes in English, Dutch and French. Chicken with Juniper Berries is also Kip met Geneverbessne and Poule au Genverier.

While there are many dishes that are distinctly Belgian, Belgium’s cuisine is similarly influenced by the countries at its borders. Besides the juniper berries, the other key flavoring ingredient in this dish is genever, a Dutch malted grain-based spirit that has been described as the “lovechild of a marriage between whiskey and gin.” And although some firmly insist that you not call it gin, it is in fact also sometimes called Holland gin or Dutch gin—and it is made only in the Netherlands and Belgium.

Chicken with Juniper Berries is a simple dish—chicken pan roasted in oil and butter with onions, garlic, plenty of salt and pepper, and the “sharp clean flavors” of the aforementioned juniper berries and genever, as Van Waerebeek says. We couldn’t agree more. And it has the added fun of flambéing the dish for a little show. A quick note—while the recipe refers to the sauce, there won’t be a lot of it, just enough to coat the chicken. But it is full of flavor.

In making this dish, I made a couple of substitutions, one by choice and one out of laziness and thriftiness. The recipe calls for a whole roasting chicken cut up into eight pieces; I used thighs and drumsticks because those are the pieces we prefer. The bigger deal was swapping gin for genever. While I could have tracked it down locally, we have lots of various gins already, and I wasn’t sure how soon I would get around to using genever for something else. In any case, this is a delicious, easy-to-make dish we are ready to eat again soon.

Print Pin

Chicken with Juniper Berries

Juniper berries and genever (or regular gin) give simple pan-roasted chicken a sharp, clean flavor.

Course Main Course, Poultry

Cuisine Belgian

Servings 4 to 6 people

Ingredients

• 8 pieces of bone-in, skin-on chicken (see Kitchen Notes)
• salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
• 1 medium onion, finely chopped
• 1 large clove garlic, minced
• 20 juniper berries
• 1/4 cup gin (or genever, if you have it)

Instructions

• Trim chicken of any excess fat. Season generously with salt and pepper. Heat oil and butter in a large, lidded sauté pan over medium-high flame. Working in batches, brown chicken on both sides until golden, about 3 or 4 minutes per side. Transfer to a plate.
• Reduce heat to medium and add onion. Cook, stirring almost constantly, until just softened, about 2 minutes. Add garlic and cook, stirring constantly, for 45 seconds.
• Return chicken to pan along with any juices, reduce heat to low and cook, covered, until chicken is cooked through, 25 to 30 minutes. Turn the chicken about halfway through and baste with pan juices. (Use an instant read thermometer to make sure the chicken is cooked to at least 165ºF.)
• Meanwhile, crush the juniper berries with a mortar and pestle or the bottom of a heavy saucepan.
• Flambé the chicken. When the chicken is cooked through, heat the gin in a small saucepan until hot. Turn off the heat (and your vent fan) and carefully light the gin with a long match. Pour it over the chicken and let the alcohol burn off (have a pan lid ready to cover the pan if the flames get too feisty—ours did not).
• Sprinkle the juniper berries over the chicken and turn the chicken pieces over to coat them thoroughly with the sauces and juniper berries, adding 1 or 2 tablespoons of water if the pan seems too dry. Cook until sauce is slightly reduced, maybe 2 minutes.
• Plate the chicken, spooning the sauces over it. Serve.

Kitchen Notes

Choose your chicken parts. We chose chicken thighs and drumsticks, four each. The original recipe calls for a whole roasting chicken, about 3 – 4 pounds, cut into 8 pieces.

About the sauce. There won't be a ton of it, not something you ladle over the finished dish. It's more just a mix of onion and garlic and juniper berry bits with a little liquid to coat the chicken. And it is delicious.