I absolutely love olives but tend to think of them as a food eaten separately, or atop salads. But when I put them into meat dishes I’m always amazed at what they bring to the final dish. This was yet another example of a tasty surprise for me.

The Baharat spice blend I chose for this dish is prevalent in the countries along the extreme eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea. I think you’ll like it on chicken and it is equally good in stewed beef curries and on roasted vegetables. I highly encourage you to give this blend a try sometime, even if not on this particular dish. It was incredible on the chicken tonight. The cinnamon and cloves come through the most, but the other spices in the blend have a subtle flavor presence as well. The spice here is the key flavor ingredient here so I would not encourage substitutions or you will be creating a totally different dish. This dish is suitable for Atkins Induction, Keto diets, and Primal-Paleo lifestyles as well. Be sure to use a good quality extra-virgin olive oil for this recipe. Note the incredible nutritional stats below! Healthy, this one!

You may notice some small round brown bits in the pic above. That’s 1 link of chorizo broken up into little pieces. But we decided we don’t like it in this dish. It conflicts too much with the Baharat spices. So I won’t ever put that in this recipe again. I suppose you can try it if you’re a big chorizo fan. You might even like it! The link of chorizo, however, is not calculated in the nutritional info below.

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INGREDIENTS:

3 medium chicken thighs

3 medium chicken drumsticks

3 T. olive oil

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 tsp. my Baharat Spice Blend (the key flavor, so don’t substitute)

4 oz. purple onion, sliced lengthwise

3 plum tomatoes, each cut into 4 wedges

24 medium black olives

Dash each salt and pepper

DIRECTIONS: Preheat oven to 425º. Place olive oil, Baharat spice and minced garlic in a pan large enough to hold your chicken without any crowding. Stir it well. Take each piece of chicken and dip each side into the oil mixture. Rub or baste each piece all over well. Evenly space the pieces skin-side up in the pan. Cut the tomatoes into wedges and space them evenly around the chicken in the pan, trying not to cover the pieces of chicken. If covered, the juice from the tomato will inhibit browning of the skin.

Next place the olives evenly around the chicken pieces. Lastly, separate the slivers of onion and spread them all around the chicken. Dip a basting brush into the olive oil mixture and baste the olives and vegetables with the oil (add more oil if needed). Lightly sprinkle with the salt and pepper. Pop into a preheated hot 425º oven and bake for about 1 hour, re-basting at 30 minutes cooking time to be sure the vegetables don’t dry out. I served this with buttered, steamed asparagus. It would also be good with a Greek salad.

NUTRITIONAL INFO: Makes 3 adult servings (serving = 1 drumstick + 1 thigh). Each serving contains:

438 calories

32 g fat

8.26 g carbs, 2.26 g fiber, 6 g NET CARBS

29.8 g protein

742 mg sodium