chicken! need ideas for thighs etc please

[harryruby]

bought chicken drumsticks and thighs. what do i do with them,i usually buy chicken breasts,so im clueless! please help. dp and ds are good eaters and will try anything x

Wait there,...................

Slow-Roasted Garlic and Lemon Chicken by Nigella

This is one of those recipes you just can't make once: that's to say, after the first time, you're hooked. It is gloriously easy: you just put everything in the roasting dish and leave it to cook in the oven, pervading the house, at any time of year, with the summer scent of lemon and thyme - and of course, mellow, almost honeyed garlic.

I got the idea of it from those long-cooked French chicken casseroles with whole garlic cloves and just wanted to spritz it up with lemon for summer. The wonderful thing about it is that you turn the lemon from being a flavouring to being a major player; left in chunks to cook slowly in the oven they seem almost to caramelise and you can eat them, skin, pith and all, their sour bitterness sweetened in the heat.

1 chicken (approx. 2-2.25kg), cut into 10 pieces

1 head garlic, separated into unpeeled cloves

2 unwaxed lemons, cut into chunky eighths

small handful fresh thyme

3 tablespoons olive oil

150ml white wine

black pepper

Pre-heat the oven to 160ºC/gas mark 3.

Put the chicken pieces into a roasting tin and add the garlic cloves, lemon chunks and the thyme; just roughly pull the leaves off the stalks, leaving some intact for strewing over later. Add the oil and using your hands mix everything together, then spread the mixture out, making sure all the chicken pieces are skin side up.

Sprinkle over the white wine and grind on some pepper, then cover tightly with foil and put in the oven to cook, at flavour-intensifyingly low heat, for 2 hours.

Remove the foil from the roasting tin, and turn up the oven to 200ºC/gas mark 6. Cook the uncovered chicken for another 30-45 minutes, by which time the skin on the meat will have turned golden brown and the lemons will have begun to scorch and caramelise at the edges.

I like to serve this as it is, straight from the roasting tin: so just strew with your remaining thyme and dole out.

Serves 4-6

that sounds fab breevan!

more please!im trying to get more adventurous (cant spell tonight)with my cooking

I only ever use chx thighs - unless it is a whole roasted chicken. The thigh is really best value as only has one small bone and so more meat.

I casserole them whole in the slow cooker or cut out the one bone and skin them chop them into bite sized peices and marinade in curry paste and a tine of chopped tomatos for a couple of days in the fridge, then cook in the oven on gas 3 or in the slow cooker - makes a lovely curry and serve with yogurt and rice for the dc.

Or use the cut up pieces and marinade in soy, chinese five spice and sherry, then a bit of a stir fry going in the wok with cabbage/babycorn/mange tout/bean sprouts and fry the chicken in frypan add noddles and extra soy if needed - serve as it is.

I can thoroughly recommend this chicken with mustard and tarragon.

I do it loads!

you can cut them off the bone (easier with thigh than drumstick) and marinade in anything you like - i like yoghurt with chilli and lemon - then grill. the yog will make it very soft but don't leave for longer than 2 hours or it goes a bit woolly.

or honey, mustard and lemon juice (about a tablespoonful of each), and bake in medium oven for 1 hour - keep an eye on it, if the honey is making it burn put a bit of foil over the top.

Tis is a recipe from TV programme, i think it's called Taste. Brown chicken pieces in 2 teaspoons of oil, remove (I put mine in the oven so they continued to cook), put sliced onion and cook until lightly brown, add sliced red or yellow pepper, stir, sliced button mushrooms, stir, let it cook, add chopped garlic clove, after a minute add 1/2 a cup of white wine, let it simmer so it reduces to half, add a can of plum tomatoes chopped without their skins with their juice, a teaspoon of oregano. Some red pepper (I didn't have so I used some paprika), a bit of salt and cover with the lid and cook for 20 minutes. The lady who cooked it (sorry I can't remember her name) said that it's best prepared in advance and then heated up so I put it for cooling and then reheated it in my oven for about 15 to 20 minutes. you can serve it with boiled rice or on oit's own. I liked it a lot.

This Waitrose recipe - Chicken with Honey root veg is great - do it for my boys lots - very easy.

that sounds really easy fedda,just one Q, do you leave the skins on the chicken? has anyone got some more slow cooker ideas for chicken thighs. i love my slow cooker and im confident when using it for beef,pork or chicken breasts,but unsure when it comes to the other bits. does anyone know how to slow cook a full chicken or a beef pot roasts?

keep um coming girls!!!!

harryruby, it was suggested to take the skins off but i didn't in spite of the fact I'm trying to loose some weight. I just love chicken skin and duck skin to that matter. Yes, the recipy is very easy and enjoyable to make and it tastes fantastic.

OK you are going to think this recipe sounds bizarre, but it really is the most delicious yummy thing. We all love it (and Cods kids ate masses when they came to lunch, you can't say fairer than that ). You need chicken, flour, onions, cloves, eggs, salt and rice.

Toss your thighs and drumsticks in some flour until it sticks.

Brown your thighs and drumsticks in a casserole with a bit of olive oil and butter. Assuming you have about 8 pieces of chicken, take two big or three normal sized onions. Roughly quarter (or maybe eighth if they are really big). Now push a clove into each piece of onion. Chuck them in the casserole with the chicken.

Now pour enough vegetable or chicken stock to just about go half way up the thighs and drumsticks (if they are in a single layer) - if in a double layer then to just go over the bottom layer and cover a bit of the top layer. Give it all a good stir, bring to the boil, add some salt, cover, and either turn right down to a good simmer, and simmer on the stove top for 40 minutes or so, or stick it in a medium oven for an hour (or the bottom oven of an aga for an hour and a half).

Meanwhile cook some rice.

When the chicken is ready, stick the rice in a big dish, put the chicken on top. Then put 2 eggyolks in a pyrex jug or something similar, add a ladle of the juices, give it a good stir, then pour the eggy mixture back into the rest of the juices (doing it this way stops it curdling which it might do if you just chuck the eggyolks in the pan). Then pour a good glug of the sauce over the chicken and rice and put the rest in a jug. Serve with veg of your choice.

Bobs your uncle. It is DELICIOUS, and super easy. And the leftovers taste almost better reheated the next day!