Magazine Recipe: Roasted Chicken, Apples & Leeks

See the original recipe here.

5-6 chicken legs

3 small crisp apples, like Braeburn

4-5 leeks, according to the original recipe, “halved crosswise and lengthwise”. In other words, quartered, I would think.

Sprigs of fresh rosemary

Olive oil

Hey, hey! Salt & pepper, and my addition- garlic salt in addition to, or instead of regular salt.

Okay, this is going to seem strange at first. But follow the directions, and you shouldn’t be disappointed.

Preheat the oven to 400. Take out a large baking sheet with rims, or edges, or something to keep stuff from sliding off. The original recipe called for the apples to be “quartered”. But I disagreed, so I cut the apples in half, and then each half into thirds. In other words, or in another word, the apples should be sixthed rather than quartered. Or would it be sexed? No, we don’t want to go there. Sixthed. I may have just coined a new term because Word is giving it the old squiggly red underline. Also, it is good to have an apple corer for this. Apple corer is one of the top 10 items everyone should have in their kitchen. #1 being a large fork. I should make a blog of my top 10 necessary kitchen items. But that’s in the future, and right now, you are trying to make this damn recipe and the oven is preheating and you didn’t come here to read a novel, so back to the recipe….

Once your 3 apples are sixthed into 18 pieces, put them on the baking sheet with the chicken legs, leeks, rosemary and spices. Oh, did you cut off the tops of the leeks? You should have. Remove the tops if you forgot that part.

If you have one of those olive oil dispensers that you pump and spray with, spray a bunch of oil all over your dish. But you probably don’t have one, because I only just recently found out they existed, and then I had to search for awhile to find one. So, slowly pour a little oil over the food and carefully toss it around until it all seems coated. Your hands will become quite oily and you’ll want to wash them, with soap. Do not, by any means use Pam or any other kind of artificial cooking spray. Because I said so.

Put the baking sheet in the oven and set the timer for about 20 minutes. When the timer goes off, turn the chicken to the other side. Drool over the dinner you’re about to enjoy. Don’t drool into the pan, especially if you’re sharing the meal with anyone. Put the dish back in the oven and set the timer for 20-25 more minutes. When the timer goes off, check the fattest leg to make sure it’s done, and if it is, take it out of the oven, turn the oven off and let it cool for at least 5 minutes.

This dish should feed 3 people, but if you have 3 people eating it, you might use 6 legs instead of 5 to avoid fist fights. Serve with bread and wine, if you want to. You will be surprised at how good it is. I was.