Every July I question my sour cherries priorities. Their season is so short and the fruit so scarce that I rarely get around to making anything but one big, juicy pie and a year’s supply of homemade maraschino cherries (must-haves in my Manhattan cocktail).
But maybe, I always think, this is the summer I’ll try something new. Then the urge passes, and I never do.
Last year, however, the sour cherry season took a little longer than usual in the Northeast, so I was able to squeeze one more recipe into the lineup. I considered jam, a treat, even meatballs before settling on a chicken from a casserole dish.
Of the roughly one gazillion chicken varieties I’ve cooked, sour cherries never made it into the mix. But I knew their spicy juices would work well with the chicken fat sizzling at the bottom of the pan.
To accentuate the sweet and sour character of the cherries, I let them simmer briefly with rice vinegar, sugar and a bay leaf. Then I spooned them over a pan full of boneless, skinless chicken thighs and red onion wedges.
As it was all toasted, the smell of caramelized fruit and browned chicken filled the kitchen, making me want to stay close enough to inhale it all. I took advantage of mixing together an ad hoc sauce of thick Greek yogurt, grated cucumber, and more of that sweetened vinegar-laurel solution I used for the cherries. Dipped on the chicken, it was a cooling, creamy counterpart to the roasted thighs, tangy cherries and soft wisps of red onion.
My family ate it with a torn baguette to catch all the drips, and we all agreed it was a delicious summer meal—even at the cost of a batch of cherry jam.
I was so taken with this dish that I tried making something similar after sour cherry season was over. I tried red and green grapes, then sweet cherries, then cherry tomatoes. All were good. But none matched the intense sweet and sour character of the sour cherries. (Note that I didn’t try this dish with thawed frozen sour cherries. I didn’t have any.)
This year, with sour cherry season approaching again, I worried that I would have to choose between pie, cocktails, and my new favorite puff pastry dinner.
Fortunately, the market yielded enough cherries to make them all.
Recipe: Chicken Thighs With Sour Cherries And Cucumber Yogurt