It’s been a while since I’ve posted a review, but here is a recipe. This was such a big success at my Passover Sedar table with everyone asking for the recipe, that it only made sense to post it here.
Ingredients
- 1 chicken cut up into 8ths (skin on)
- 5 large cloves of fresh garlic (thinly sliced or chopped)
- 5 large lemons
- 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
- 15-25 Fresh thyme twigs
- Salt
- Pepper
The Marinade
Squeeze the lemons to obtain approximately 1/2 cup of fresh lemon juice (the more the better).
Slowly add the olive oil to the lemon juice whisking and tasting on a regular basis. The mixture should be on the tart side. To the lemon juice and olive oil mixture add salt and pepper to taste, leaves from about 5 twigs of thyme and garlic.
Set aside
The Chicken
In a baking dish firmly pack the chicken pieces so there is minimal space in between the pieces. Pour the marinade over the chicken ensuring the marinate comes up to at least halfway up the sides of the chicken pieces.
Let the chicken marinade at least 24 hours in the refrigerator but no more than 30 hours. If the chicken wasn’t completely covered by the marinate flip the chicken over after 12 hours.
Cooking
The acid in the lemon juice will start cooking the chicken and some of the fat will get extracted and firm up (just like chicken soup the next day from the refrigerators). Remove the fat from the pan and transfer the chicken to a clean baking or roasting pan. Pour approximately 1/2 of the marinade over the chicken.
Cover the chicken with the remaining whole stems of thyme
Cover the pan with foil and place in a preheated 350 degree oven and cook until meat almost falls of the bone (about 60-90 minutes).
The secret
There are two tricks to this wonderful recipe. First, you have use fresh squeezed lemon juice the processed stuff just doesn’t cut it.
The second is the chicken has to marinate for at least 24 hours. This way the lemon juice not only deeply penetrate the chicken, but the acidity starts the cooking process and helps extract the fat from the chicken skin which can be removed prior to cooking hence reducing the overall fat content of the meal.