Rounding out the July Sweet as Pie picks was Honey-Plum-Soy Chicken, a hearty braised chicken dish. I can’t say that this one caught my eye when flipping through the cookbook, but I was pleasantly surprised. It was really good, gave us some great leftovers, and was pretty easy to make. Here’s how it came together:
First you marinate the chicken in wine with some bay leaves.
While the chicken marinated, I mixed the sauce. More wine, an entire bottle of soy sauce (use the low sodium if you can), honey, and plum preserves. Well, actually Publix failed me on the plum preserves (an unusual occurrence at my favorite grocery), so I just picked something else purple – grape jam. 
Jennifer at Redheads Plus One sent out a warning not to use the regular soy sauce in this dish because it made it almost unbearably salty. Unfortunately, I’d already purchased the ingredients for this one. But, since I knew the saltiness was going to be an issue going in, I added a little extra honey and some extra wine to help cut the soy sauce.
The sauce, all ready to go.
Next, I browned the chicken in olive oil before adding some minced garlic to the pan. Look how purple the chicken is from marinating in the wine. This whole dish was very purple. I even started humming “Start Wearing Purple” by Gogol Bordello while I was making it.
Add the sauce and some chopped plums to the dish before moving it to the oven to cook for 1.5-2 hours.
Plums always remind me of my grandpa. We use to eat them when we’d visit him in the summers.
The finished product, served over egg noodles and sprinkled with green onion (a must – it really adds to it):
Luckily, this dish was not too salty for us and I don’t think the substitution of the grape jam made much of a difference, so no worries if you can’t track down plum preserves either. We really enjoyed this dish and loved the layers of flavor in the sauce. And I especially enjoyed how yummy my house smelled while it was cooking! It was a great way to get some exposure to plums – a fruit we don’t typically keep around here.
