Fried Chicken Legs with Grapes, Walnuts and Raisins

Name: Chicken with Grapes: Fried Chicken Legs in White Wine Sauce
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 30 min
Total time: 50 min
Cuisine: Italian cuisine
Ingredients: Chicken legs 4; White grapes 400 g; Raisins 100 g; Walnuts (shelled) 0.5 cup (50 g); Wine (dry white) 100 ml; Olive oil 4 tbsp; Flour for dredging; Salt, curry powder to taste; Ground nutmeg a knife tip

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50 mins

I sat down to write this recipe and almost wrote “the fruits of the chicken have valuable culinary properties”… The culprit is the delicious dish we made this morning: fried chicken legs with grapes.

Chicken with grapes, or rather chicken legs in a white grape and wine sauce with walnuts and raisins. I still feel as if we had breakfast at a favorite little restaurant on the Mediterranean shore.

Fried chicken legs go wonderfully with a delicate sauce of nuts and grapes. The famous recipe for chicken thighs baked in the oven with pineapple under cheese — the combination of chicken and the sweet-sour taste of pineapple is loved by everyone, or almost everyone. And baked stuffed duck with apples is simply a masterpiece. Fruit, especially tart fruit, gives poultry an unmatched flavor.

Grape sauce gives chicken a special piquancy. Considering that grapes are tasty, healthy and even medicinal, chicken with grapes can almost be considered a medicinal dish. The berries of ripe grapes sometimes contain up to a third of their volume in sugar, including glucose and fructose. They also hold an incredible amount of organic acids and trace elements. At the same time, grapes have on average 2-3 times fewer calories than rye bread.

Raisins are usually made from grapes whose berries have no seeds. The famous variety is kishmish. By the way, in Arabic “kishmish” means dried grapes. They say raisins are at least 3,000 years old. When I was little, for some reason I thought raisins grew on a tree and even tried to draw such a tree, for which I got a failing grade.

Simply frying chicken is, as a rule, not difficult. You get fried chicken. It’s fairly trivial and has become tiresome. But if you fry the chicken, or its parts, and then let it simmer in a grape sauce, you get a wonderful and delicious dish.

Right now grapes, kishmish included, are plentiful, and raisins are sold in every kind. So making a Sunday breakfast is no trouble at all. Chicken legs with grapes are a wonderful dish, so treat yourself and your loved ones.

Ingredients

2 servings

Chicken legs 4
White grapes 400 g
Raisins 100 g
Walnuts (shelled) 0.5 cup (50 g)
Wine (dry white) 100 ml
Olive oil 4 tbsp
Flour for dredging
Salt, curry powder to taste
Ground nutmeg a knife tip

Step-by-step recipe

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How to fry the chicken legs

You can even cook a whole chicken by this recipe. But for two servings you can take just wings, legs, thighs or drumsticks, whichever you prefer. I decided to use only chicken legs (drumsticks). They have enough meat and are well suited to cooking in portions. And try cooking goose or duck legs the same way, which is even tastier.

Ingredients: chicken legs, white grapes, raisins, walnuts, white wine, spices.

Prepare the chicken legs: wash them, remove any remaining feathers and excess fat, and pat dry with a paper towel. Add salt and sprinkle with curry powder. Curry goes very well with chicken in general. Let stand for 15 minutes so the salt dissolves.
Fry the legs. Heat 2 tbsp of olive oil in a deep sauté pan. Dredge the chicken legs in flour.
Fry over medium heat on all sides until a golden crust forms.
Turn the heat down to the minimum and cover the pan with a lid. Cook, turning often, for 15-20 minutes. The chicken should be fully cooked: when pierced, the juices run clear.

How to make the grape sauce

Prepare the grapes and nuts. Pull the grapes off the stems and divide them into two parts. Pour boiling water over the first part for 2 minutes and cool under cold running water. Use a sharp knife to peel off the thin skin. Cut each grape in half lengthwise and remove the seeds, if there are any. Toast the walnut kernels in a dry skillet or in the microwave until they smell strongly nutty. There is no need to chop the kernels.
In another skillet, heat the remaining 2 tbsp of olive oil and fry the peeled grapes in it for 2-3 minutes.
Add the rinsed raisins; there is no need to soak them first. Add the toasted nuts and ground nutmeg, a knife tip, and salt lightly. Fry everything together for 5-6 minutes, stirring, until the grapes release their juice: it forms the sauce in which the fried chicken legs will be braised.
Add 100 ml of dry white wine and bring to a boil. Turn the heat down to the minimum and cook covered until the sauce reduces to the thickness of kefir. Stir from time to time, although the sauce doesn’t scorch.

How to combine the chicken with the sauce

5 minutes before the sauce is ready, add the remaining whole unpeeled grapes to the chicken legs in the sauté pan. Fry over medium heat without a lid until the grapes turn “pale”, that is, lighter in color.
Add all the sauce to the chicken legs and grapes, stir and braise covered at a gentle simmer for 10 minutes.

Serving

Put the fried legs on plates and be sure to spoon over the sauce formed during cooking, along with the whole grapes and nuts.
Homemade bread and a good white wine go very well with this dish.

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Calories and macros

1295 kcal

Serving ≈ 470 g

Protein51 g16% of kcal
Fat89 g61% of kcal
Carbs75 g23% of kcal

100 g278 kcalProtein 11 gFat 19.1 gCarbs 16.2 g

Calculated from the recipe ingredients, excluding salt and spices. Data: USDA and Matvaretabellen.