This one-tray chicken dish has a spicy, warming edge
One person’s idea of comfort food might be the next person’s idea of challenging. It’s personal, tied up with home, family and memory.
When it comes to cooking and eating, what does “comfort” mean? At first glance, we might think of it as the food we make and eat at home after a tough day. It’s the food we make without thinking too much. It might also be the recipes we grew up on, which remind us of being a kid and being looked after. Nurture, convenience, nostalgia, indulgence: agreeing on the notion of comfort food is fairly straightforward. What’s harder to pin down, though, are the actual dishes that hit these proverbial spots. One person’s idea of comfort food might be the next person’s idea of challenging. It’s so personal, so tied up with home, with family, with memory, even with the random idiosyncracies of personal taste.
Try our other new recipes: puttanesca-style salmon bake and mayo-free potato salad.
This is an edited extract from Comfort by Yotam Ottolenghi and Helen Goh with Verena Lochmuller and Tara Wigley (Ebury Press, $65). Photography by Jonathan Lovekin.
Spicy chicken thighs
Ingredients
- 1 teaspoon whole allspice berries or pimento
- 2 bay leaves, roughly torn
- 1½ teaspoons hot chilli powder
- 1½ teaspoons paprika
- ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon mixed spice
- 25g light soft brown sugar
- 1½ tablespoons runny honey
- 1-2 green jalapeño chillies, finely chopped
- 1-2 red habanero chillies, finely chopped
- 1 small red onion, cut into 1cm dice
- 2 spring onions, finely chopped
- 50ml olive oil
- 1kg chicken thighs, bone in, skin on
- 2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
- Salt
Method
- Put the allspice and bay leaves into a dry pan and toast them for 1 to 2 minutes, until the bay leaves have blistered. Using a mortar and pestle, crush to a powder, then tip into a large bowl along with all the remaining ingredients apart from the chicken and vinegar.
- Add 1 teaspoon of salt, mix well to combine, then add the chicken. Massage well, so that all the thighs are coated, then marinate in the fridge, covered, for at least 6 hours (or overnight). Half an hour before you’re ready to cook the chicken, take it out of the fridge, add the vinegar and toss to combine.
- Preheat the oven to 180C (fan-forced). Spread the chicken out on a large parchment-lined baking tray, skin side up. Bake for about 45 minutes, rotating the tray halfway through, until crisp and golden brown.
- Remove from the oven and allow to rest for 10 minutes before serving.
Serves 3-4, accompanied with rice and salad