Chicken in White Wine Sauce with Bacon

Are you looking for an easy one-dish chicken recipe that is packed with flavor?  Here’s an answer!  You are looking at delicious recipe for adult comfort food served around the camp fire!  

Ingredients:

• 4 -5 slices of bacon (about 5 ounces)
• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1 tablespoon dried chopped chives
• Salt
• Ground Pepper
• 8 Chicken Thighs
• 1/4 cup olive oil (or enough to cover the bottom of the 14-inch Dutch oven)
• 1 sweet onion, chopped
• 1 cup dry white wine (another 1/4 cup may be needed)
• 2 cups chicken stock (another 1/4 cup may be needed)

I used our 14-inch Lodge camp Dutch oven for this dish that serves 8 to 10 people.  It has plenty of room for the chicken and sauce.  The recipe is easily adjusted for a smaller oven and fewer servings.  I also used Dennis’ cook station to keep the charcoals hot enough to fry and then simmer the food and allowed me to cook continuously without having to add more charcoal or change it out frequently.Fry the bacon, remove and crumble it, and leave the flavorful fat in the bottom of the oven.    Remove the oven from the charcoal.

Lay the chicken thighs out on a platter and season both sides with salt and pepper.  I used Penzey’s Smoky 4/2 Special Seasoned Sea Salt and love the extra flavors it brings to the dish.  Regular salt works just fine.

Mix the flour, thyme, and chives together in a bowl.  Dredge the seasoned chicken in the flour mixture.  If the bacon fat does not cover the bottom of the 14-inch Dutch oven, then add olive oil until the bottom is covered with a thin layer.  Put the oven back over the hot charcoal and when it starts to spit, place the chicken skin side down and fry until a golden crust forms, about 2-3 minutes.  Turn the chicken over and fry the other side for 2-3 minutes.  Remove the chicken to a plate lined with paper towels.  Add onions and sauté until they start to turn translucent.  I removed some of the charcoal to lower the temperature and avoid over browning (or burning) the onions.  Deglaze the oven with the white wine and chicken stock, stirring constantly for a few minutes to get all of the flavorful bits up off of the bottom of the oven.  Use a wooden or plastic spoon, not metal, to protect the seasoning of the oven.  Stir in bacon bits.  Place chicken skin side up into the wine sauce.  When the sauce is simmering, place the lid on the oven.  Every ten minutes, check the internal temperature of the chicken and baste the chicken with the sauce. Add extra chicken stock and wine to thin the sauce out, if the chicken is not done and the sauce is so thick it may start to burn.  When the internal temperature of the chicken reaches 165 degrees Fahrenheit, remove the oven from heat and serve.  I really like the way the bacon hangs out in the background and compliments the flavor of the crispy chicken.  The white wine sauce makes the chicken so flavorful and moist but surprisingly does not make the chicken soggy.  I can’t wait to make this for our Prairie Dog friends at the Valentine’s Day DOG (Dutch Oven Gathering)!

I want to thank Lindsay and Bjork for their super excellent food blog A Pinch of Yum that is a huge source of inspiration for me.  (This recipe was inspired by Lindsay’s recipe for Skillet and Bacon White Wine Sauce.)  If you love to look at gorgeous photographs and don’t mind drooling all over your key board, check it out.  Lindsay’s recipes are great and her sense of cooking humor makes her posts interesting, personable, and engaging.  Their eBooks and resources for food bloggers are a filled with excellent advice for food blogging and photography.  I am seriously thinking about signing up for their Food Blogger Pro to see if it is worth the monthly subscription fee.

After reading 5 Ways to Improve Your Food Photography with Artificial Light, I was inspired to improve the quality of my images and the quality of my blog.  I have struggled with lighting, especially if I start to cook in the afternoon and my food isn’t ready to be photographed until the evening.  Looking back at my images, I can see the yucky yellow lighting that Lindsay talks about….. this cornbread looked SO much better than the image shows!  GACK!!  No more horrible lighting!

I have a long way to go, but am ready to start taking baby-blogger steps to improve my blog – shoot only in in Manual mode (no more use of the Automatic), add pages to organize my content by major themes (recipes by type such as bread, chicken, etc), get the Lowel EGO Indoor Lighting Unit, set up a content calendar/schedule, write about my work-flow to establish a more disciplined process, and learn more about the food photo submission sites that Lindsay recommends.  It will be interesting to see what things look like at the end of 2015!

As always, I really appreciate any feedback you have to share with me in the comments section. Also, if you are food blogger, I’d love to hear what resources you use to improve your food blog.  I’d also love to follow your blog, so let me know by sharing your URL in the comments.

Thank you for hanging out with me in my outdoor kitchen!