Here is my recipe for a luck of the draw chicken dinner.I made it up on the spot.
You will need:
Chicken. For this recipe I used 3 large chicken legs with back portions. Kosher chicken tastes better so I used Empire chicken.
3 garlic cloves
1 large shallot
fresh coarse ground black pepper
salt
paprika(the normal kind, not smoked or hot)
1 bay leaf
a quarter can of low sodium chicken broth. Chicken broth and boullion cubes are packed with sodium.We are trying to cut down on salt — we have been ossifying our organs and bones with salt for decades.We are old now and care about these things. But the truth is that tasty cooking needs salt.The trick is to allow all the flavors to meld for long enough in the oven or pan so that you won’t even want to add even more salt when at the dinner table.
drizzles of olive oil(on second thought the fat from the chicken is probably enough.So if you are concerned about fat calories leave the olive oil out–olive oil has the good fat–you just have to weight the pros and cons of good fat over caloric intake.
a liberal splash of red wine. We had a leftover bottle of 8 buck cab my cheapass roommate bought. It is marginally drinkable (I found it on the sweet and thin side) but it is still drinkable. I think you should only cook with wine that you could actually swallow. And when I say liberal we are coming close to a cup 🙂
baby carrots-about a bag’s worth
a deep baking dish, think Pyrex 9 by 11
aluminum foil
a preheated oven.
We have a toaster oven. All our meals are prepared in a toaster oven because we don’t have a real oven.
If you are fortunate enough to have an oven (which is most of you) set your oven to 450. If you use a toaster oven think about whether or not it runs hot or cool . Ours runs cool. So I set it to 480 (the highest setting) on bake.
But this is Neglected Drunken Chicken so fussing over oven temps isn’t all that vital.
Preparation:
rinse and pat dry the chicken,place in baking dish.
drizzle chicken with olive oil.
grind pepper over chicken.
sprinkle chicken with salt and a lot of paprika. The paprika will give the chicken a wonderful color.
chop garlic. I sprinkled one chopped garlic clove over each piece of chicken.
chop shallot. I sprinkled equal amounts of chopped shallot over each piece of chicken.
pour the chicken broth into the baking dish around the sides of the chicken. Repeat the same for the red wine.
arrange the baby carrots in the baking dish around the sides of the chicken.
put the bay leaf in the liquid.
put a sheet of tin foil over the dish (tent-don’t seal) and then put the dish in the oven.
Here comes the fun part: