Back in the day, this was my mom's favorite quick chicken recipe. It was comfort food for cool Minnesota nights, warming her kitchen, filling the whole house with the enticing aroma of roasted chicken and potatoes -- and in just a couple of hours, filling our bellies too.
Your best recipes – where do you find them?
My own bookshelves hold dozens of cookbooks. The basement houses who-knows-how-many back issues of cooking magazines. An invaluable food website is Epicurious, where every-day home cooks critique recipes from Gourmet, Bon Appetit and other food magazines. The Food Network is entertaining and reliable for tips for new tools and techniques. NPR broadcasts the radio program ‘The Splendid Table’ on Saturday afternoons; I often plan an hour’s kitchen time then, to listen.
But in the end, our standby recipes, the ones we make again and again, often originate with family and friends. They are time-tested dishes that feed grown-ups and kids alike day in and day out, mostly simple to prepare and served without fuss.
Two years ago, four generations and three nationalities of family from my mom’s side collected hundreds of favorite recipes for a family cookbook. Here, I’ve combined two recipes from our cookbook, a baked chicken recipe of my mother’s and a roasted-potato recipe from my cousin Diane. Together or separate, these recipes are so easy, so good. What do you think, is this Tonight’s Supper?
The chicken looks better and stays slightly moister when baked with the skin on. To avoid cross-contamination, once a spoon or knife has touched the uncooked chicken, don’t return it to the sour cream container.
TONIGHT’S SUPPER?
RECIPE for BAKED CHICKEN with
HERB-ROASTED POTATOES
Time to table: 1 hour, 45 minutes
Serves one to many!
-
BAKED CHICKEN
- Chicken pieces, skins on or off (see TIPS)
- Sour cream
- Salt & pepper
Set oven to 425F. Spread chicken pieces on a shallow pan lined with foil for easy clean-up. Brush evenly with sour cream, using about a tablespoon for a leg and thigh, for example. Season generously with salt and pepper.
-
HERB-ROASTED POTATOES
- (enough to serve 4)
- 2 - 3 tablespoons Dijon mustard
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 1/2 teaspoon Italian seasoning or another herb of choice
- 1 pound medium-size red-skinned or Yukon gold potatoes
- Salt & pepper
Mix mustard, oil, garlic and herbs in a bowl. Leaving skins on, and stirring each potato into mustard mixture when prepped, cut each potato in eighths, then cut eighths in half. Arrange potatoes on a lightly greased cookie sheet in a single layer. Season generously with salt and pepper.
Place chicken and potatoes into oven side-by-side for 30 minutes.
Stir potatoes. Reduce heat to 300F and roast both the chicken and potatoes for another hour.
On A Veggie Venture, my food blog about vegetables, I just posted a recipe for Rosemary Potatoes. It includes some great techniques for reducing the fat needed to roast potatoes and other starchy vegetables. They would work great for this recipe, too. Ha! When I wrote this column back in 2002, Epicurious was a happenin' place, but new to many home cooks. Now it's one of the premier food sites online and remains one of my very favorites. This easy chicken recipe was originally published in print in 2004 and is published online for the first time in 2009.More Easy Chicken Recipes
More Potato Recipes
~ Smashed Potatoes & Broccoli ~
~ Lighter Mashed 'Potatoes' ~
(not potatoes but a low-carb substitute)
~ more potato recipes ~
from Kitchen Parade
(a real revelation about how long to bake Baked Potatoes
~ Microwave Baked Potatoes ~
~ Warm German Potato Salad ~
~ more potato recipes ~
from A Veggie Venture, my food blog
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~ potatoes ~
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© Copyright 2004 Kitchen Parade
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Jessie
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Thank you for taking a moment to write! I read each and every comment, for each and every recipe. If you have a specific question, it's nearly always answered quick-quick. But I also love hearing your reactions, your curiosity, even your concerns! When you've made a recipe, I especially love to know how it turned out, what variations you made, what you'll do differently the next time. ~ Alanna