Crispy chicken stuffed with toasted pumpkin seed bacon jam

Pumpkin Everythang!\

Back at it again with another pumpkin month. I can’t even lie to you it gets harder and harder every year to come up with 9 new pumpkin recipes. Its year four, and I have decided that I have to get into using all the parts of the pumpkin, skin, flesh and seeds in order to make it through. So, without further gibberish on the struggles I deal with in recipe creation let’s get to what your here for this bombtastic recipe.

This recipe evolved from a roulade. I was planning on making a chicken stuffed with pumpkin. And then I thought about the bacon wrapped pumpkin stuffed chicken breast I already have on the blog and not to mention the three million and thirty-five thousand roulade recipes available online. With that in mind, I had to give it a second thought. I wanted to make it just slightly easier, getting rid of the need to get boneless meat or to pound anything thin and roll up in plastic. I was going to make a pumpkin seed pesto under the skin but opted for something sweeter, hence the bacon jam.

I threw just about everything at this one, bacon, sage, onions, garlic, ginger, thyme, cinnamon, honey, white wine, chicken broth, pumpkin seeds, you name it! (in my Shirley Caesar voice). Combine that with the natural fats and juices from the chicken and it creates the most comforting warm, sweet, salty, herby, nutty interesting dish you will probably ever eat.

When you bite into it you first get the nuttiness from the toasted pumpkin seeds, followed by subtle hints of cinnamon in the meat, topped with the sage and spicy gravy. It’s a really great recipe that would probably adapt well to a whole roast chicken or even a turkey. This plate of drumsticks and thigh with its extremely crispy skin and super tender meat soaked in a great sauce will be the highlight of the night.

Ingredients (printable recipe)

4 leg quarters

1 tablespoon Salt

½ teaspoon Black pepper

1 teaspoon Cinnamon

For the pumpkin seed bacon jam

1 tablespoon butter

¼ cup toasted pumpkin seeds

8 strips bacon

½ cup onion

1 tablespoon fresh sage chopped

¼ cup vinegar

¼ cup brown sugar

1 tablespoon honey

2 tablespoon oil

For the sauce

1 cup Chicken broth

1 ½ cup Sweet white wine

5 Sage leaves whole

2 Garlic cloves shredded

1 tablespoon shredded Ginger

½ teaspoon Sugar

2 pinch salt or to taste

4 Fresh Thyme sprigs

½ scotch bonnet pepper

Instructions

• Wash and pat dry the chicken, four drumsticks and four thighs
• Season with salt, black pepper and cinnamon
• Allow this to marinate for 45 minutes up to overnight in the refrigerator

For the jam

• In a hot dry pan toast the pumpkin seeds until they begin to turn golden
• Stir continuously to prevent burning
• Remove them from the hot pan as soon as some of them begin to get too dark and set aside to cool
• Add butter and rough chopped bacon to the pan fry until almost crispy
• Add onions and sage cook until the onions have softened
• Add the toasted pumpkin seeds, vinegar and sugar
• Bring to a boil then reduce to a simmer until the sauce just it slightly thickened
• Remove from heat Allow the mixture to cool for 5 minutes stir in the honey
• blend in a food processor until it becomes a thick paste/jam
• If the mixture is too thick when blending add vinegar 1 teaspoon at a time to help the texture.
• Completely cool before stuffing the chicken

For the chicken

• Lift the skin of the chicken and put a heaping tablespoon of jam under spread around to coat
• Repeat for all drumsticks and thighs
• Add oil to a pan and place the thighs skin side down into a searing hot pan allow it to brown
• Brown all sides of the drumsticks
• Remove from the pan and set aside once brown
• In the same pan add all the ingredients for the sauce and allow it to simmer and reduce by half
• Add the chicken (and any juices that ran from it) back to this pan skin side up, the liquid should come up about ¼ inch of the chicken
• Add some more fresh thyme leaves to the top of the chicken
• cook uncovered to a 350-degree oven for 45 minutes
• Once cooked remove the chicken from the sauce and place the sauce on the stove top and allow it to reduce.
• Serve chicken with gravy

Xoxo Greedygirl