Recipe: Perfect Chicken with Porcini, Cinnamon and Barley

Chicken with Porcini, Cinnamon and Barley. Pour over the chicken, parsnip and pear. Stir in the garlic and barley, ensuring the barley is well-coated. Add the stock and a little salt.

When the pearl barley is soft, but still with a little bite, and most of the liquid has been absorbed, it's ready to serve. Chicken breasts baked with cinnamon and other seasonings. This is a recipe that I created while working at a flight kitchen. You can have Chicken with Porcini, Cinnamon and Barley using 11 ingredients and 7 steps. Here is how you achieve that.

Ingredients of Chicken with Porcini, Cinnamon and Barley

It's 6 of chicken thighs (about 1 1/2 lbs of chicken; I used skinless but will use skin-on next time and make sure that I cook the chicken until the skin is really crispy).
It's 1/2 of white onion, peeled and diced.
Prepare 2 cloves of garlic, peeled and finely diced.
It's 2 of tsps olive oil.
You need 1 Tbsp of chopped sage.
It's 1 tsp of chopped thyme leaves.
You need 1/2 of cinnamon stick.
It's 4 slices of bacon, finely chopped.
You need 1/3 cup of dried porcini mushrooms.
Prepare 1 cup of barley.
You need 2 cups of boiling water.

Sprinkle evenly with ground cinnamon, seasoning, garlic powder, salt and pepper. In the same skillet, wilt the shallots in the remaining butter. Add the fresh mushrooms and the porcini and cook until all the liquid has evaporated and the mushrooms are beginning to brown. Remove from heat and stir in cinnamon and ¾ of the apple.

Chicken with Porcini, Cinnamon and Barley step by step

Put the dried mushrooms and the cinnamon stick in a bowl. Pour the boiling water over and set aside for at least 30 minutes. I typically do this type of thing in the morning when I am making coffee and then put it in the fridge until I need it at dinner time..
Put the barley in a large bowl and cover it with cold water, set aside for about 30 minutes as well. Can also be done in the morning as above. After 30 minutes, rinse the barley very well and put it in a large pan, covered with new water. Bring to a boil, lower heat and cook for 25 minutes. remove from the heat, cover and set aside while you make the chicken. If using pearl (also called soup) barley, skip this step as it needs less cooking time than the hulled barley I used and just add it as is.
Put the olive oil, bacon, garlic and onion in a large skillet. Turn the heat to medium-low and cook until the bacon has rendered its fat and the onion is translucent, stirring from time to time, about 3 minutes..
Raise heat to medium. Add the chicken to the pan and salt well. Sprinkle with half of the thyme and sage. Sear for a couple of minutes to brown and then turn the chicken, scraping up all the pieces of onion, bacon and garlic to the top so that they don't burn, and salt again. Sprinkle over the remaining thyme and sage. Cook for an additional couple of minutes to brown the other side of the chicken as well..
While the chicken is browning, remove the cinnamom stick and the mushrooms from the mushroom soaking water. Discard the cinnamon stick. Remove any tough or hard pieces from the mushrooms and discard. Chop the remainder. Strain the mushroom stock through a coffee filter and reserve..
Lower the heat, remove the chicken to a plate and add the drained barley as well as the chopped mushrooms to the pan in its place. Stir the barley and mushrooms together with the pan juices, bacon and onion..
Place the chicken pieces back on top of the barley. Pour over the mushroom stock, cover the pan and cook for 15 to 20 minutes until the chicken is cooked through and the barley is tender but not mushy. Check barley for salt before serving..

Serve topped with remaining apple and extra cinnamon. barley with-porcini-mushroom nutrition facts and nutritional information. Every time I hear the words Cinnamon Chicken I am reminded of the tv series Little House on the Prairie and the famous episode where Nellie asks Laura to help her cook Almanzo's favorite meal. Laura is jealous of Nellie and replaces the cinnamon with tons of black pepper. It's a wonderful stewed chicken dish that's very good served over couscous or rice. Dried porcini give an earthy, punch to this Italian classic.