By no stretch of the imagination am I “good” at cooking, but I realize that it’s a very necessary life skill (sigh). With that said… Holy smokes. This is the best recipe I’ve tried in a long time. I’ve been on a let’s-eat-more-fish-and-less-chicken-and-beef kick, but this dish has ruined me because it’s been officially added to my rotation of favorites. Here it is from Food Network, rated 5 stars and all, with a few ingredient modifications in italics below.
Ingredients:
- 3/4 pound small red-skinned potatoes, halved, or quartered if large [increased to 1 lb.]
- Kosher salt
- 2 sprigs fresh rosemary, plus 1 tablespoon leaves
- 1 clove garlic, smashed [increased to 3 cloves]
- Pinch of red pepper flakes [what’s considered a pinch?! I used a dime-sized amount.]
- Juice of 2 lemons (squeezed quarters reserved)
- 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
- 4 skin-on, bone-in chicken breasts (6 to 8 ounces each) [used 1.5 lbs. chicken thighs– also can use drumsticks]
- 10 ounces cremini mushrooms, halved [increased to 1lb., threw away the stems, and quartered]
Preheat the oven to 450. Cover the potatoes with cold water in a saucepan and salt the water. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat and cook until tender, about 8 minutes; drain and set aside.
Pile the rosemary leaves, garlic, 2 teaspoons salt and the red pepper flakes on a cutting board, then mince and mash into a paste using a large knife.
Transfer the paste to a bowl. Stir in the juice of 1 lemon and the olive oil. Add the chicken and turn to coat.
Heat a large cast-iron skillet over medium-high heat. Add the chicken, skin-side down, cover and cook until the skin browns, about 5 minutes. While chicken cooks, wash and quarter cremini mushrooms. NOTE: I don’t have a cast-iron skillet so I used a regular large fry pan.
Turn the chicken; add the mushrooms and potatoes to the skillet and drizzle with the juice of the remaining lemon. Add the rosemary sprigs and the squeezed lemon quarters to the skillet; transfer to the oven and roast, uncovered, until the chicken is cooked through and the skin is crisp, 20 to 25 minutes. If you’re using a regular pan like I did, transfer everything to an oven-safe dish before putting in the oven; I used a 9″x13″ Pyrex baking dish.
An additional change I would make for next time would be to use skin-on chicken thighs/breasts or drumsticks like the original recipe recommends. Mine was skinless, and therefore lost all crispiness. Delicious regardless. 🙂 Yields 4 servings.
Very nice, and the photos are pro-quality! You could probably add in carrots and parsnips (I love parsnips) if you wanted some vegetables, and also you could deglaze the pan with some wine and make a sauce to pour over the finished dish (might not work as well if you have a nonstick pan). To get better browning you could also just use a heavy stainless steel pot, which would give you higher temps than a nonstick.
thanks for the tips!! yikes, i can barely follow simple recipes, will need to work my way up to fancier things like.. sauces. lol.
Sauces/gravies can be really easy. Liquid+flavor+thickener. The easiest thing is to mix cornstarch with cold water, then mix that into your pan drippings, heat, and that will create sauce that will resemble Chinese sauces (because Chinese are big on cornstarch). The European way of doing it is to brown flour in fat (from your pan, or use butter) and then add in the liquid (broth, drippings, water, milk, etc). Don’t mix cornstarch into hot liquids or mix flour with water/juices or you’ll get lumps.