I made this recipe last night, extremely loosely based off a recipe from Jamie at Home, which I basically looked at just to make sure I had the correct oven temperature. I posted a picture to Twitter, and people seemed to like it! My internet friend Colin, who is awesome, asked me to send him the recipe, and I thought, Wait, recipe? Goddammit, now I have to write one. Thanks a lot, Colin! In the end, I decided I should just post this here so that I don’t feel like I’m neglecting this blog as much as I actually am.
Buon appetito, or something similarly foreign language-y.
Serves: 2, but you could pretty easily double everything if you don’t live alone like I do. If you have roommates you don’t particularly like, make sure to make enough for them but then tell them they can’t have any. Doesn’t that feel good, being drunk on power? Try adding some beer or wine to that feeling, it’s the best.
Ingredients:
· 2 chicken thighs, but really, use breasts or whole legs if you want, even though chicken breasts are the worst part of the chicken.
· New potatoes. I used 6. What is that, 1/2-3/4lb? Or just use regular potatoes and cut them up. They like that, especially the nice and waxy ones like red potatoes.
· 1 Green bell pepper, stemmed, seeded and cut into large chunks, because they are cheaper than the other colours and I’M NOT MADE OF MONEY.
· 1 Red Serrano pepper, stemmed, seeded (keep seeds if you want it to be spicier) and cut into strips, but use any hot pepper you like, I picked this one because I didn’t want another all green meal. If they’re small, use more, maybe.
· Asparagus, ends removed. I used like 8 spears, which is all I had left, but that’s OK, I think. I live a fulfilling life.
· Garlic. I mean, seriously. Do you know the right amount to use? You just start peeling cloves until you go, “Yes, that is the amount of garlic I want,” which is often limited by the amount of garlic you have. I used about 5 cloves this time.
· An onion, cut into large chunks would be good here, I think. I didn’t have an onion. Maybe get an onion?
· Olive oil
· Chili-infused olive oil, if you have it. It’s pretty easy to make, too! Just put some crushed chilies into olive oil and then leave it for a few days.
· Crushed chipotle
· Seasoning salt
· Kosher salt and ground pepper
The part where you make food:
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit, with rack in middle position. Boil a pot of water, any ol’ water will do. For an extra fancy meal, like a dinner party or something, boil some San Pellegrino and just leave the bottles out so that your guests know that you spent a bunch of money on them.
2. Boil potatoes. You don’t even have to boil them all the way, just a parboil will do nicely. This will take between 10 and 20 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, look at your chicken. Isn’t that nice chicken? Put some olive oil, seasoning salt, pepper and chipotle powder on it, and rub it sensually. If you don’t rub it sensually, your guests will know.
Alternately, you can make a quick rub out of chipotle powder, seasoning salt, rosemary, a clove of garlic and some chili-infused olive oil, combined in a mortar and pestle or a Jamie Oliver Flavour Shaker your parents got you for your birthday one year and which is pretty rad. Just don’t accidentally burn the chicken (see Step 4), causing you to have to take the blackened skin off your chicken and make a simpler, more depressing spice rub to use instead.
4. Brown the chicken quickly, skin-side down first, at medium-high heat. Don’t put extra oil in the pan and brown the chicken at really high heat, because do you know what happens? You turn around 30 seconds later and your apartment is full of smoke and you are hoping the fire alarm doesn’t go off. Hours after dinner, when you return home from the comic book store, you will see a police cruiser and an ambulance in front of your building and be temporarily wracked with guilt, thinking that somehow they knew. Or that you somehow killed somebody, don’t ask me how.
5. While your chicken is browning, smash the shit out of some of those garlic cloves with the flat of your chef’s knife. Isn’t that fun? Take that, dad! Wait, what?
6. Toss the potatoes, peppers, garlic and asparagus together in a roasting pan with some chili-infused olive oil, kosher salt and pepper.
7. Put the chicken in the pan! Skin-side up, of course. Make sure the veggies are all nicely arranged around it. Don’t segregate them, like a food racist.
8. Roast in oven for about 30-40 minutes, or until things are golden brown and your whole apartment smells wonderful, like if Martha Stewart took a shit, because there is zero way she hasn’t found a way to make that smell good.
9. Meanwhile, make a salad! I used some mixed greens, tomato, cucumber, radish and strawberries. By this point, I was lazy and didn’t want to make my own dressing made out of lingonberry vinegar and olive oil, which would have literally taken 30 seconds if I was being slow, a full minute if I decided to grate some romano cheese into it, so I just used the Parmesan Pesto variety of Kraft’s Olive Oil line of dressings. Christ, I’m lazy.
10. Speaking of cheese, put some on top after everything is done, if you want! I bet that would taste good. I wish I’d done that.
11. Plate that motherfucker! Put the roasted goodness on top of some of the greens, because that is straight up classy.
12. Enjoy with some good summery beer like a hefeweizen, some nice, dark bread and a smug sense of self satisfaction.
