I make a pan of herb-roasted chicken thighs and legs roughly once a week, and get so many uses out of it!

The backbone of the dish can be formed in a few different ways: a couple bunches of parsley, celery leaves or celery root leaves, or the tops from a couple bunches of carrots or fennel. I’ve even used Queen Anne’s Lace greens and they were terrific!

Whatever you choose, it’s necessary to have a substantial amount of plant material, not only for flavoring, but to produce liquid for gravy and prevent the chicken from sticking to the pan.

On top of this, lay some other herbs to be closer to the chicken. I always use rosemary and thyme, but sometimes mix in others. Orange mint is remarkably good.

Then arrange the chicken, skin side down, and season with garlic powder and onion powder. Black pepper, other herbs and spices, and lemon juice optional. Using dark meat makes a huge difference; the technique works fine with white meat but dark meat absorbs much more of the herb flavor.

Roast at 375 F for 30 min, then flip, season the other side, and roast another 30 min. I also use the flip break to put the vegetables in to roast, usually the carrots or fennel whose tops are under the chicken. Today, fennel and celery root.

This leaves me with a meal for the day of juicy, flavorful, crisp-skinned chicken and delicious roasted vegetables, with a lot more chicken for future meals. Squeezing out the herb bed gives an amazing juice that I reduce down and add cream to for out of this world gravy so herby it’s green in color, not brown. And the used herbs themselves get put in the freezer to flavor my homemade broth.

#cooking #foodstr #foodie #foraging #grownostr