Chicken Marbella | Food Wishes

This is my version of Chicken Marbella, the Silver Palate’s most famous dish, which was a viral sensation in New York before that was even a term. This amazing chicken recipe’s secret ingredients are prunes and olives, which may sound like a weird combination, but creates one of the most delicious chicken dishes ever invented. Enjoy!

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Hello this is Chef John from foodwishes.com with chicken Marb that’s right I’m going to show you my version of the silver Pet’s Famous Chicken Marb which was named that because they couldn’t call it chicken with olves and prunes since nobody’s ordering that but despite that possibly weird sounding combination of

Ingredients this is without a doubt one of the top five most delicious chicken recipes ever maybe top three so with that let’s go ahead and get started by prepping our chicken and for this I like to use 12 of the largest bone in skin on chicken thighs I can find and whenever

We work with these I think we should find the thigh bone which runs this way and once we identify that we’ll flip it over and make two cuts perpendicular to the Bone right through the skin like this about an inch and a half apart and

That will allow our marinade to get in a little deeper and a little quicker and I also think it makes for a little more interesting appearance so we’ll go ahead and do that to all 12 oh and I should mention the original recipe is done by cutting up whole chickens pretty much

Like we would do if we were making fried chicken but for me the thighs are the most userfriendly choice and we don’t have to worry about the white meat drying out while we’re waiting for the dark meat to cook through but anyway once our chicken’s prepped we can move

On to this very simple but incredibly delicious marinade which starts with a whole bunch of crushed garlic plus an equally generous amount of dried oregano followed by some fresh ground black pepper and then of course some kosher salt with the rule of thumb being 1 teaspoon per pound of meat and then

We’ll also do a few shakes of cayenne even though that’s not in the original recipe right they probably just forgot it and then we will also add a little bit of Caper brine which is the liquid the Capers are packed in and you will see the actual capers in a minute but

For now we’ll just add the juice and that’s it we’ll finish up with some red wine vinegar as well as some nice olive oil and then we’ll grab a whisk and give this a quick mix before we head over to whatever container we’re going to marinate our chicken in which in a

Perfect world is something large enough to fit all the thighs in one single layer and then besides the chicken and the marinade we will also need some haved green olives some chopped up prunes which I’ll talk about in a second and some Capers and what we’ll do is

Take half of each of those things and we’ll scatter those over the bottom of this container and yes you’ll definitely want to buy the pitted olives for this and then regarding the prunes which I like to chop up pretty small I’m not sure how many people realize those are

Actually dried plums but some genius a long time ago decided not to call them dried plums since I guess that sounded too delicious and they named them prunes instead which does not sound as good but anyway we’ll toss half of those three things in the bottom and then we will

Place in our chicken skinside down and once those have been placed in we’ll give our marinade a quick stir and then apply a nice generous Spoonful to the top of each thigh and I will admit this step may or may not be necessary right we probably could just dump over all the

Marinade and it would probably come out very close but this just feels right so I do it okay it’s part of the ritual of cooking that you always hear me talking about and then what we’ll do is go ahead and flip these over and then once we

Have all those thighs turned with the skin side up we can take the rest of our olives and prunes sorry I mean dried plums and capers and we can scatter the rest over the top and then eventually we will Top everything with the rest of the

Marinade and by the way if you don’t have a container like this where everything fits perfectly you can just use a roasting pan or one of those large foil pans you use for your turkeys or even if you want a large bowl or a plastic bag okay as long as the meat’s

Surrounded by all this goodness we’re going to be fine but if you do have something like this I think it’s an advantage since we know everything’s going to be evenly and properly marinated but anyway like I said once all that’s been applied to the top we’ll

Go ahead and spoon over the rest of the marinade oh and I forgot to mention there’s supposed to be a few bay leaves tossed in here which I decided not to add because I forgot to write it down when I transposed the recipe so I will

Add a note to the written recipe if you want to add those and then before we cover this if you have it I like to place a piece of parchment paper over the top and give that a nice firm pressing down but this is optional and

You don’t have to do it but I like to again it just looks and feels right and then what we’ll want to do is cover this and then pop that in the fridge to marinate for 24 hours okay just overnight is fine but if you can go the

Full 24 hours I think it’s even better and that’s it the next day we will pull it out and unwrap it and we will place that skin Side Up in a nice large roasting pan and then once that Pan’s been thighed we’ll go ahead and take any

Of the remaining olives Capers and dried plums and we will scatter those evenly over the top along with any of the excess marinade and as we get to the end of that task we will want to sort of clear off the top of the thigh and you’ll see

Why in a second as we transfer on the last ingredients but first we need to add the second to last ingredient which would be pouring over one cup of white wine or if you don’t do wine you could do some chicken broth with a splash of

Vinegar in it so if you want to do that instead feel free I mean you are after all the pl of your chicken Marb but the wine is highly recommended if you can use it and then to finish this up believe it or not we’re going to sprinkle the tops with

Some brown sugar I know you didn’t see that coming nobody does and then the original recipe we would sprinkle all of it on top now but I’m just going to use about half the amount at this point and then we will add the rest after we based

But first things first so once our chicken’s been Brown sugared as shown it is ready to trans transer to the center of a 350° oven for about an hour and 15 minutes to an hour and a half total but after about 40 to 45 minutes we should

Probably pull it out and give it a basting just to kind of moisten the tops and take a look at everything plus it’s a proven scientific fact that basting is therapeutic oh yeah if you have a lot of stress you should try this and then what

We’ll do after a little bit of basting is finish the sugaring and in case you’re keeping scored home I’m definitely using less brown sugar than the original recipe since I think there’s plenty of sweetness coming from those dried plums but anyway once that’s been accomplished we will pop it back in

The oven until it’s cooked to our liking which for me is the meat being fork tender but not falling off the bone and for an optional step once we think our chicken’s almost cooked we can crank the heat up to like 425 for the last 15

Minutes or so just to get some extra Browning on the top and once we’re done if everything goes according to plan our chicken should look like this and then you don’t have to but I’m going to give these one more based so the tops are nice and shiny for the

Pictures and then for a final Final Touch This is traditionally sprinkled with chopped parsley and that’s it our chicken Marb or as many of you will insist on calling it chicken Marbella is ready to enjoy and we really should let this cool down a little bit before

Trying to eat it but I was starving and could not wait so even though it was is too hot and I knew it was going to be hard to cut in the pan I went in for a taste anyway and that my friends as I mentioned in the intro is one of the

Most delicious chicken dishes of all time and many claim the most delicious chicken dish of all time so I took a couple quick bites before plating some up properly and by properly for me I mean on some mashed potatoes although this really is vantastic on so many

Things including rice and pasta and we will definitely want to spoon over plenty of those olives and dried plums along with copious amounts of the cooking liquids which we could thicken up if we wanted to bother but we don’t just spoon it over like this and start

Eating and what makes this so incredibly enjoyable to eat is that it has everything okay it has the perfect balance of sweetness and tanginess and brininess and saltiness and all that is perfectly balanced by the acidity from the wine and the vinegar which really cuts through the richness and that sweetness

From from the fruit so to summarize I loved everything about this and you might be thinking if this is so incredible and one of the greatest chicken dishes of all time why have I never heard of it well I think it’s because this originated in New York City

In the late ’70s at the silver pallet and while it was a viral sensation there it was much harder for a dish like this to gain popularity in other parts of the country mostly because this was before the internet and you actually had to talk to other people or read about it in

A magazine or newspaper so news about a dish like this really didn’t travel that fast but anyway now we do have the internet and people like me showing you how to make it so now there is no excuse for you not to know about and make and

Enjoy this dish on a regular basis and I really do hope you give this a try soon so please follow the links below for the ingredient amounts a printable written recipe and much more info as usual and as always is Enjoy