I was in the mood to cook!  Why?  The blasted cold is just about gone.  Now it’s down to a mild cold where I can function somewhat.  What a nutty start to the year.  It’s just as well it’s on its way out as tax season has begun and I don’t have time now to be sick.  While the kids and my husband were playing Monopoly I was scouring our cookbooks to find a dish that would let me use up a few ingredients but do something different.  Plus I was in the mood for a bit of red wine so I had to make something that would accompany the wine.

I had chicken thighs to use up and some parsnips in the veg bin.  I found a recipe in Scott Conant’s book “New Italian Cooking” that gave me inspiration.  As I didn’t have dry white wine, mint, or a tomato I had to create my own dish but I was heavily influenced by his recipe. This is a very easy dish to make but there is time involved as it needs to bake for about 50 minutes.

I took loads of photos for this and my camera has come up with another issue.  At least 12 photos aren’t on the camera at all!  So the first few steps are missing the photos.  Time I think to get it into the local camera shop to find out what is going on.  I love this camera and use it all the time.  I may have to resort to my iPhone for a bit which is passable but not what I want to use!

Pre-heat the oven to 325F/160C

The chicken thighs we had are boneless and skinless.  In a skillet heat up a couple of T of olive oil and brown both sides of the thighs.  Place in a baking dish.  In the skillet add about 1/2 cup of marsala wine and reduce by half.  Scrap the skillet to incorporate the browned bits of the chicken.  While it is reducing dice parsnips, coarsely chop about 3-4 cloves of garlic, thinly slice half a red onion, and finely chop a bunch of rosemary.  Pour the wine reduction over the chicken.  Add more olive oil to the skillet and cook the parsnips until they start browning.

Add in the rosemary and onion.  Cook until the onion starts to soften then add in the garlic.

Add a spoonful of tomato paste and about 4 cups of chicken or turkey stock.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  Bring the mixture to a boil and simmer for a few minutes.

Pour over the chicken thighs.  Ideally this should only cover the chicken half way up.  Bake for about 50 minutes until the chicken is tender and cooked through.

Serve with sides of your choice.  I served this with roast potatoes because I can’t get enough of those.

The marsala wine is wonderful with parsnips.  I’ll have to come up with more dishes with those two ingredients.  And it was great with the red wine.  😉