Lemon garlic chicken

This delicious weeknight meal pairs great with mashed potatoes or rice and some seasonal vegetables.

Before you begin, a couple things to note:

• Try seasoning the chicken on the baking sheet to minimize clean up

• Bone in chicken thighs tends to taste better as the bone adds more flavor

• If you don’t have bone in, that’s ok, just make sure you decrease cooking time; the bone slows the cooking process

• I marinated my chicken in pickle juice and buttermilk (as well as other spices) one thing to consider is that pickle juice packs a lot of SALT. So season accordingly.

Here I seasoned my chicken on a baking sheet which keeps the clean up easy.

Lemon garlic chicken thighs

Ingredients:

Marinade

• 2 cups buttermilk

• 1 cup pickle juice

• 2 black cardamom pods (optional)

• 3 crushed gloves of garlic

• 1 bay leaf

Cooking the chicken

• 8 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs

• Salt and pepper, to taste

• 2 tablespoons of butter

• 2 tablespoons olive oil

• 3 cloves garlic crushed

• 2 tablespoons garlic powder

• 1 tablespoon onion powder

• 1/4 tablespoon cayenne

• 1 sprig fresh thyme

• 1 lemon, sliced

Sauce

• 1 teaspoon cornstarch

• Butter milk (if needed)

• Lemon juice

• 2 cloves of garlic (crushed)

• Roasted lemon slices or lemon zest (I used an immersion blender so I blended up 1 lemon slice, if you don’t have that just use lemon zest)

Instructions

Marinade

1. Mix together your buttermilk, pickle juice, bay leaf, garlic, and black cardamom

2. Add chicken and cover to marinate for 6-24 hours

Cooking

1. Preheat oven to 400°F

2. Mix together garlic powder, onion powder, black pepper, and cayenne

3. Season both sides of the chicken thighs generously with your spice blend

4. Get your oil in the pan and once is starts to smoke a little, add in your chicken thighs skin side down. Let that cook for 6 minutes or until the skin is golden.

5. Flip your chicken and then add butter, thyme sprig, and smashed garlic. Now we will baste this like a steak. Do this for about 2 minutes, then add your sliced lemon on each chicken thigh.

6. Place into the oven and bake for 10-15 minutes, or until the internal temperature of the chicken reaches 165°F (74°C).

7. Remove from the oven and let it rest for 5 minutes before serving

The sauce

NO immersion blender

1. You should have some liquid in the pan, here you add crushed garlic, lemon zest, and butter milk if you want it to be a bit creamier.

2. Add corn starch and stir until thickened

With immersion blender

1. Add your buttermilk and corn starch and stir for a bit

2. Transfer to the mixing bowl your blender came with and add your whole garlic as well as 1 roasted lemon slice. (just do one, the rind can be bitter)

3. Blend and then serve.

Keep chicken thighs skin side up as they rest, so skin remains crispy.

For my sides, a did some rice noodles, a grilled caesar salad with homemade dressing and topped it with some pickled red cabbage.