Chicken with okra & wild figs

Hail wild figs! Wild figs trilogy is starting! All started with the wild fig tree that was brought up by itself (hence wild) in my parent’s yard. A couple of meters away from the ‘normal’ fig tree that gives close to August the loveliest figs in the world. “Figs! Yes! Figs!” that was me late May when I was visiting my parents in Greece. “What should we do with them?” “Oh but these are no good, they are wild you can’t straight eat them, we usually make the fig spoon sweet of them but not sure that mom has time to do this even.”. They were so pretty, they smelled great, so tender, just amazing. I love figs that’s not new, and the wild ones were also not exactly new to me. I kept seeing them every year but they were in the ‘wild-no use’ category. So spoon sweet it is I said to myself. As I try to eat as healthy as possible the idea of the spoon sweet was great but I knew I was going to eat much of it. But yet I thought ok, I haven’t made this recipe I will try. I brought the figs back with me in Netherlands, in my hand luggage. And yes I made the spoon sweet but I kept some to do the photo shoot for the blog. Just around 10 of them. And then it hit me. There was no way that I would throw away food and especially these beautiful figs that travelled the world for me. I realized how their skin and texture resembles the okra one. They should be great together I thought – and they were!

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the recipe

60′

350gr. fresh okra
10 wild figs
2 big chicken thighs
400gr. fresh tomato juice
80gr. olive oil
3 spring onions cut in medium pieces
1 small onion cut in medium pieces
3 garlic cloves sliced
4tbsp. minced parsley
salt
black pepper
1/2tsp. sugar to balance the flavor of the fresh tomato
some Feta cheese to serve

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directions

Preheat your oven at 180 degrees C.
In a big baking pan add all the vegetables together with the tomato juice, the olive oil and the spices – mix well with a spoon.
Add in the pan also the chicken and make sure that is seasoned well (use extra salt, pepper if needed)
Cover the pan with a wet piece of baking paper and bake for 20′. Remove the baking paper and bake another 35′-40′, the food is ready when the sauce is nicely done.
Serve with some feta cheese and..

Enjoy!

Tips!

You can make this recipe also in a pot as a summer stew if you prefer. In that case add the chicken in the pot first to get a nice brown color from both sides, then the onions with the olive oil and spices for 2′-3′ and then the tomato and some water. Let it simmer for 40′ altogether. This will be a more juice version than the oven one which turns out more caramelized.

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