I wanted to share with you today a recipe that is a family favorite. It has a long story to it, but the short version is that a friend, Tasha, shared a chicken recipe years ago and since then I’ve put my own lazy twist on it. LOL! Well, lazy and added a few ingredients. It’s also super easy because it’s basically a “to taste” recipe. In other words, there are no measurements for anything. You just use the ingredients to your liking. Here it goes!
What you need:
Chicken WITH the skin and the bone! Seriously! DO NOT try this with boneless/skinless. It won’t taste as good, I promise you!
One blulb of garlic
One package of rosemary - you can find fresh herbs in your produce area, don’t use dried!!!
At least 6 lemons
Kosher Salt - table salt is EVIL!
Pepper
Preheat oven to 450.
First you rinse and put your chicken in the dish. You can’t see it here, but I always make two dishes of this when I’m making it for dinner. That way I have left overs! I tend to just buy whatever chicken pieces are on sale that week, it really doesn’t matter which ones you use. You just want it to be on the bone and with the skin.
Next, you salt and pepper your chicken, and rub it into the meat. I looooooooooves a crispy chicken, so I tend to put more salt on it than pepper. And the Kosher salt is such a nice size with a totally different taste than table salt. Seriously, don’t use table salt! I’m not a fan of it, and reserve it for baking recipes.
Then you’ll want to slice your lemons in half, reserving one or two, and juice them. You can also use the lemon concentrate for a stronger lemony taste.
Then you just pour the lemon juice over the chicken.
Now for the reserved lemons. I like to add lemon slices to the tops of the chicken but I don’t like the bitter taste that the peel can leave behind. I like to cut off the peel before cutting the slices. To do this I just slice the top and bottom off so I have a flat surface to keep the lemon from rolling around.
Then I simply slice off the peel, rotating the lemon after each slice until it looks like that.
Then I slice the lemon! Two lemons is ideal, but if you’ve only got one left over (like I did this day), then all you need to do is cut the slices in half. This will give you plenty of slices to lay on top of the chicken.
Just like that!
This next step is my favorite! I learned this garlic trick from an Alton Brown episode, back when we had TV and I used to watch his show religiously!
You’re going to use a whole bulb of garlic. Don’t worry! It’s not going to make the chicken spicy! What I love so much about this recipe is how light all the flavoring is. Oh, that’s my little garlic peeler tube thing I got years ago with my Sister-in-Law Julie. We went to a fabulous kitchen store (I can’t remember what the name was, but it’s no longer there) and I walked out with this and a Silpat. I’ve had then for about 10 years and haven’t had to replace them. Another bonus, Don thinks this is fun, so I often get him to peel my garlic! Every little bit helps!
All you so is put the garlic clove in the tube.
Then you smash it and roll it. And you ignore my dry hands.
When you’re done, you just plop it out and the skin with either already be off or you just have to “unwrap” it.
Do this to the whole bulb, then add the WHOLE cloves to the baking pan. You do not chop them up in any way! The secret is that when you use whole cloves, it makes the chicken moist. When you chop up the garlic, it makes your food spicy and that’s not what we’re going for with this dish. What we do want is a moist chicken, so we leave the garlic whole.
Next you take your fresh Rosemary, rinse and add it to the baking pan. I currently don’t have an herb garden of any sort, so I just purchase my fresh herbs from the grocery store. They are usually packaged and in the produce section.
This is what your baking pan will look like at this point! Now it’s ready to be put in the oven.
I bake it at 450 for about 30 min, then check and add more baking time, if needed.
When it’s all done it’s this lovely brown with a crispy skin! And your kitchen will smell SOOOOO yummy!
Mmmmmm!! Our favorite way to eat it is with some sticky rice and some veggies. Broccoli is the veggie of choice around here these days. We add soy sauce to the rice. Another side that goes really well with this is red potatoes. I’ll have to share that another time!
And now I know at least one dish I’m making for dinner this week! And kinda sad that it isn’t for today! LOL!
Enjoy!
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