Month-of-Chicken: Spicy Chicken Pockets

Big Mama said, “I’m going to make this when I go home.”

“NOT!” I thought to myself.

I’m glad she enjoyed this so much, but the reality is, this dish, while not difficult--I don’t do hard, remember--does have a number of steps and an ingredient she isn’t likely to keep in her cupboard. Still, this is the third recipe she says she’ll try, so I take that as a compliment.

I mixed up the chicken stuff in the morning, let it sit all day in the refrigerator so the flavors got to know one another. I assembled dinner in the evening. I stuffed the pockets while the oven heated. Then, 12 minutes later, we ate!

Spicy Chicken Pockets (serves 4--2 each)

Meat mixture:

¼ medium onion, diced

1# ground chicken breast or other ground chicken

1 t cinnamon

¼ t ginger

½ medium tart apple, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

Sauce:

1 c Marsala wine

1 t cinnamon

¼ t nutmeg

½ tsp ginger

2 pie crusts

1 c chicken gravy (or turkey)

For the meat mixture:

Sauté onion to translucence on medium high heat. Add the ground chicken. Sprinkle cinnamon and ginger on top and mix throughout. Cook thoroughly.

When almost done, add apple and garlic. Finish cooking. Remove to heat-safe bowl.

For the sauce:

In the same skillet, combine wine, cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger. Cook over medium high heat. Reduce wine mixture by one half (about 8 minutes from boil).

Pour hot sauce over chicken and mix thoroughly. Refrigerate until ready to assemble dinner. There will be liquid in the bottom. The longer it sits, the better.

To make dinner:

Preheat oven to 425º.

Take chicken mixture from the refrigerator and mix up to redistribute the juice. There isn’t much in the bottom of the bowl at this point.

Cut 2 pie crust rounds into four sections each, like pizza slices. Spoon chicken mixture onto a crust wedge and fold the long side together and crimp closed. Repeat with the top short dough section. Place on ungreased cookie sheet. Repeat with the remaining seven dough slices.

Bake for about 12 minutes. Serve with a little chicken gravy on the top.

See how far one pound of ground chicken goes? I even had some left in the bowl. I’m going to heat that up and serve on lettuce beds for a couple of lunch salads. Yum!

I served this as an entrée, but by making smaller rounds, this can be a bite-sized appetizer, too. Because they are not really held together inside, if you are making it as an appetizer, truly make sure it is one-bite sized. (More than 2 dozen, so you’ll need 3 pie crusts to make this an appetizer.)

DH’s Rating: Five Tongues Up! He didn’t even want to add salsa to it! That’s a first!