Category: Chicken

I was intrigued with this roast chicken recipe from Tasty because the 450°F oven temperature was pretty high. Their goal was to make the skin crispy. I’ve always preferred a slow-cook and would always baste the chicken and flavor the inside with aromatics; I suppose those steps never really gave me crispy skin, but I’ve always thought it was just the way it was.

How can you have crispy skin and still a juicy meat? I can now tell you that this is how.

To catch all the chicken juice, I opted for sweet potatoes. I peeled them and sliced them in large rounds. I threw in half a red onion and leftover chopped celery just because they’re all I had left in the fridge. I was skeptical about how the potatoes would get cooked without extra seasoning, but I held off on adding any extras–the chicken juice was actually enough to cook and season the potatoes!

If you’re using other heartier root vegetables, feel free to return them to the oven if they still need a few minutes of roasting; a little olive oil and more seasoning probably won’t hurt either.

Ingredients:
1 whole air-chilled chicken
salt, pepper
some vegetables for roasting

1. A day ahead of roasting your chicken, dry it thoroughly with paper towels, including inside the cavity. Season well and rub all over with salt and pepper, including inside the cavity. Using a toothpick, pierce the chicken all over. Place on a baking dish and put in the fridge, uncovered, for at least 8 hours.
2. The day of roasting your chicken, take the chicken out of the fridge and let it sit in room temperature for at least an hour. Truss your chicken with butcher’s twine. Place the chicken on a rack–breast side down–where the baking pan is lined with chopped vegetables so that they can catch the chicken juice while roasting.
3. Preheat the oven at 450°F. Roast chicken for an hour. Your chicken is done when the thickest part of the leg registers at 165°F with a food thermometer. Remove from the oven and let the chicken rest for another 20 minutes.

Thanks to Christopher Kimball’s free Milk Street recipes every Tuesday, I always get an idea of what I can make for dinner that week. Za’atar is a Mediterranean spice blend that a lot of people use to grill meats. I was craving that grilled flavor, but because I don’t own a grill and I don’t really want to turn the oven on when it’s 90 degrees outside, I wanted some thinly-sliced meat that will cook through fast.

The Arabic word za’atar also means “thyme”, but I didn’t have it handy so I skipped it in my own version and just made do with what I had in my pantry. The cumin made the chicken very earthy while the sumac added that lemon tartiness that lightened up the whole meal. I really liked the parsley-scallion salad idea here–I never thought I can make a “salad” out of 2 simple ingredients. It was the perfect match to this very flavorful chicken.

Ingredients:
For the za’atar:
1 tbsp sumac
1 tbsp cumin, grounded
1 tbsp sesame seeds
1 tbsp oregano
1 tsp salt

3 boneless chicken breasts, thinly sliced
3 tbsps flour
a handful of parsley
2 scallions, chopped
1 tbsp lemon zest
lemon juice
oil, salt, pepper

1. Mix all your za’atar ingredients in a small bowl and transfer to a plate so it’s easier to coat the chicken. Set aside. Put the flour on a different plate and also set aside.
2. Pound the chicken so they’re thinner and faster to cook through. Lay plastic wrap on a chopping block and put the chicken side by side on top of the wrap. Cover with another sheet of wrap. Gently pound with a rolling pin or a heavy knife handle. Pound until the chicken pieces are about half a thumbnail thin.
3. Season the chicken with salt and pepper. Then cover with your homemade za’atar spices; shaking off the excess.
4. Heat a large skillet and add some oil until shimmering. Now cover the spiced chicken pieces with flour; also shaking off the excess. Then add them to the pan and fry each side for 3 minutes. Use a grill press if you have one to weigh the chicken down. Do this in batches if your skillet is not big enough.
5. Make your quick salad while cooking the chicken. In a bowl, combine the parsley and scallions, and season with some oil, zest, and lemon juice. Massage with your hands to mix well.
6. When the chicken pieces are golden brown, remove to a plate and top with the parsley salad.

What do you do when you have enough farm eggs to last you for a few weeks? You have 2 eggs for breakfast everyday of course, but you also have eggs for dinner.

This tagine, d’jaj souiri, is different from your traditional Moroccan tagine because it has a more Spanish influence: the eggs like a tortilla, or a Spanish omelet.

Ingredients:
3 chicken legs
1 white onion, chopped
saffron threads
1 cinnamon stick
5 eggs
1/4 tsp cinnamon powder
1/4 tsp cumin, grounded
juice from 1 lemon
a handful of parsley, finely chopped
paprika
oil, salt, peper

1. Brown the chicken pieces by heating some oil in a deep, large skillet and then adding and cooking them until they are golden brown on both sides. Remove them to a plate.
2. Using the same skillet, add a little more oil. Saute the onions, add saffron, and the cinnamon stick. Season with salt and pepper and then add 4 cups of water.
3. Add the chicken and turn up the heat to boil. And then cover and turn down the heat medium-low. Let simmer for 25 minutes.
4. In the meantime, beat the eggs in a bowl and season with cinnamon, cumin, salt, and pepper.
5. Uncover the skillet and turn the chicken over. Continue to cook, uncovered, to thicken the sauce.
6. Stir in the parsley and lemon juice. Pour the beaten egg all over the chicken and let it set, about 5 minutes. Sprinkle with paprika.

This is a Jamie Oliver recipe that requires you to spatchcock your chicken, but I decided to keep it whole and do less work. This increases the cooking time in the oven, so I just made sure the chicken fit snugly in my deep cast iron pan so that I could easily transfer it from the oven to my stovetop to finish. If you are using a regular roasting tray, transfer the chicken to an already-heated frying pan, deep enough to hold it and its juices.

I marinated the chicken a day just to make sure the flavor set in. If you only have a few hours to do so, try this with smaller chicken pieces. I carved the chicken and served it with some greens and leftover roasted butternut squash.

Ingredients:
1 whole chicken, rinsed, pat dry with paper towel
1 stick of butter
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
a knob of ginger, chopped
1 tsp turmeric, ground
1/4 tsp cinnamon, ground
1 lemon, zest separated
a handful of cilantro, leaves separated from the stems, roughly chopped
olive oil
3 tbsps honey
4 scallions, chopped
1 fresh green chile, chopped

1. Make the marinade. Melt the butter in a small pan. In a blender, pulse together the garlic, ginger, turmeric, cinnamon, cilantro stalks, and lemon zest. Squeeze in the juice from half the lemon. Season with salt and pepper and pour in the butter with a tbsp of oil. Keep blitzing until a bit pasty while adding more oil if it’s a little too thick.
2. Rub this marinade all over the chicken, working it into all the nooks and crannies. If you are marinating in advance, cover the chicken and pop it in the fridge until needed.
3. When you’re ready to cook the chicken, preheat your oven to 375º. Place the chicken in a deep-enough snug-fitting cast iron pan and spoon over any marinade that may have fallen off. Cover the tray tightly with foil and roast in the oven for 1 hour and 10 minutes. The chicken should be cooked through. Check by piercing the thigh with a sharp knife. If the juice that runs out is clear, you’re okay.
4. While the chicken is cooking, toss together in a bowl the scallions, chile, and cilantro leaves with the remaining lemon juice. Set aside.
5. Carefully transfer the chicken from the oven to the stovetop on medium heat. Baste it with any juice from the tray and drizzle it all over with the honey. Cook until the chicken skin is golden. Serve the chicken with the scallion garnish.