Sunday, February 15, 2009

Quick, spicy, BBQ flavored chicken

One of my favorite quick meals (with a little bit of prep beforehand for marinading) is a dish of roasted chicken thighs and drumsticks, with carrots and onion. I do this differently every time, it seems. Here's what I did tonight. I used four thighs and four drumsticks.

For the marinade:
  • 1 lime, juiced
  • 1 tablespoon salt
  • Lots of pepper
  • A couple of tablespoons of vegetable oil
  • A couple of tablespoons of ketchup
  • A teaspoon of prepared mustard
  • A half teaspoon of dry English mustard
  • A few drops of one of the really hot novelty hot-sauces (anything that says something like "XXX" or "Do Not Want" or "This will make you Butt Hurt" on it)
  • About 10 oz of Coca-Cola (no kidding, Coca-Cola).
Whisk that all together and put it over the chicken parts, in a big bowl. Cover and stick in the fridge for at least three hours.

Once that three hours is about up, preheat your oven to about 400, and cut up a big onion into thick slices, and place that at the bottom of a largish roasting pan. Peel and thickly slice three medium carrots on the bias and add them as well. Drizzle with olive oil and kosher salt.

Heat up your biggest cast iron pan, and add olive oil once hot. Brown both sides of all of the chicken parts (you'll have to do it in shifts), and as they finish, put them on top of the vegetables, skin side up. Once they're all added, throw it in the oven uncovered for about 40 minutes.

After the 40 minutes are up, take out the pan and turn the oven to 'broil'. While it's heating up, drizzle a tablespoon or so of the reserved marinade over each chicken part (which should at this point have nice and crispy looking skin) and then stick back under the broiler for about 5-10 minutes.

Remove. Eat. Enjoy.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Forget the bowl, toss them into a 1Q or 1G Ziploc freezer bag. Saves fridge space and lets you really work the meat around in the marinade.