Is it baking or roasting? Trust me, I've Googled it so many times, and yet every time when I made similar dishes, I still have to look it up again and deciding whether should I call it baked or roasted.
Doesn't matter which word I used though, I think when it comes to chicken, we can still kind of get the idea and have a general expectation of the dish. So this time "oven-baked" it is.
Oven-baked chicken with green olives and cherry tomatoes -
Ingredients?
- 4 skin-on deboned chicken legs (breast ok too)
- 12~15 green olives
- 200 grams cherry tomatoes
- 5 medium small potatoes
- 1 yellow lemon
- 1 bundle flat leaf parsley
- 4 garlic cloves
- 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
- 1/2 cup dry white wine
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
How?
Before cooking the meat, use your finger and feel through the chicken making sure there're no bone fragments anywhere. Also trim-off excess fat if any.
Save some whole flat leaf parsley and then chop the remaining leaves, we will need about 1/3 cup for actual cooking. Save the stems for later. Mix chopped parsley with zest of one lemon, 1 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice, 1/2 cup of extra virgin olive oil, 2 teaspoons of salt, and 1/2 teaspoon of black pepper. Mix till blended.
Rub the chicken with half of the parsley mixture all over then arrange on baking dish, or a baking sheet lined with foil. By the way, I actually laid down parsley stems on the bottom. Figured if I'm not really eating the tougher stems, might as well use them for something instead of goes to waste.
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit/200 degrees Celsius.
It's up to you if you would like to peel the potatoes or not, it also depends on the variety you're using too. I peeled mine, also halved and quartered some bigger ones. Peel and slice the garlic cloves.
As for the cherry tomatoes, I halved a few and left some as a whole. That way I get to enjoy both the fully baked halved tomatoes and whole tomatoes that might burst in my mouth in the end. Kind of fun.
Arrange the potatoes and cherry tomatoes around the chicken. Also arrange green olives and garlics slices throughout. Pour the remaining parsley mixture on top, and pour 1/2 cup of dry white wine to the baking dish.
Into the oven for one hour. If there's enough juice, about half way through the baking time, baste of chicken with some juice in the baking dish.
Once done baking, turn-off the oven and let the meat rest inside for 10 more minutes. Remove from heat and rest for another 10 minutes. When ready to serve, garnish with some of the whole parsley leaves that we saved earlier.
I know chicken should be the main ingredient here, but somehow the potatoes really took over my attention. They were fluffy and juicy, fully soaked in all the juice from other elements.
It's up to you if you'd eat the olives too. I simply put them there for extra flavor, but since the kind I used came with pits, I tend to ignore them. The extra delicious potatoes are not helping me to sway my attention to the olives too.
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