Some years ago when I was staying with a friend in Greece, he took us to a very unusual restaurant run by a delightful and well-travelled couple. The dishes on the menu came from all over the world, all were original, and, judging by the muffled sounds of appreciation of the other diners, good.

Mrs Salineros took me into her tiny kitchen – how she managed to cook for such numbers on an elderly domestic oven I shall never know. She showed me how some of the dishes were put together. I saw that the most popular one was also quick and easy and I couldn’t resist tentatively asking for the recipe for her glazed chicken with kumquats.

“It’s not at all a secret” said Mrs Salineros, who told me that she had discovered the aromatic combination of citrus, honey and chicken* while they were living in the middle east.

I have adapted the recipe to exclude unfindable ingredients and undoable processes with the exception of the kumquats. But whereas most Saucy Dressings’ recipes are designed to be endlessly robust with regard to everything – time, weights and measures, and the easy availability of ingredients, this recipe is really all about kumquats, it’s what to do with kumquats when you are lucky enough to find them. Nothing else will substitute very effectively.

Kumquats are in season from November to March.

Serve with basmati rice and a green salad or a grilled aubergine.

Mrs Salineros’ Glazed Chicken with Kumquats

Serves 4

Ingredients

• 6-8 pieces of chicken (dependent on size and hunger levels)
• ½ pint/300ml/1¼ cups orange juice
• 5 teasp fresh lemon juice (juice of about half a lemon)…or, a very successful substitute, red vermouth
• 3 tbsp honey
• 1½ teasp crushed dried chillies (more if you like chilli), OR a pinch of Urfa pepper flakes
• 10 kumquats (you could try substituting with a blood orange), sliced and depipped
• handful of pine nuts
• salt (Falksalt lemon would be good if you can get it)
• about four sun-dried tomatoes, finely chopped
• ingredients for basmati rice
• ingredients for a green salad or for grilled aubergines

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 210ºC.
2. Put the chicken pieces in a shallow ovenproof dish so that they are all lying flat.
3. Sprinkle with salt and the Urfa pepper flakes, or the dried chillies.
4. Pour over the juices and the honey, and the sun-dried tomatoes, turning the chicken pieces so that they are covered all over – at this stage you could leave for an hour or so in the fridge to marinate.
5. Leave with the skin side up.
6. Scatter with the kumquats and the pine nuts.
7. Bake for half an hour, or possibly longer depending on your oven and the size of the chicken pieces.
8. Meanwhile, cook the rice, and make a quick green salad – OR, right at the beginning, put the prepared aubergine halves in.

*For another version of this successful trinity of flavours go to chicken with a lime glaze.

For a post about kumquats and other things you can do with them, follow this link.