Sweet and Spicy Chicken and Potatoes - The Easy Weeknight Dinner

Today we're going to make Calabrian hot honey chicken and potatoes. This is a great change up of a traditional chicken and potato dish. I know you're going to love it. So I always like to go over the ingredients. This helps you. It's what it's all about. Recipe says eight chicken thighs. OK, so I'm using bone in skin on chicken thighs. You can also use boneless skinless if you like. I trim these up. They're always done by machine now, even like the quote unquote premium brands. So I trimmed all the overhanging skin and everything else just to make them fairly uniform. I have nine here because nine came in the pack. We're going to marinate that chicken at least two hours, but preferably overnight in a paste almost we're going to make. And that's going to consist of a half a cup of dry white wine, two tablespoons of honey, one small onion that's just chopped so we can get it in the blender, two teaspoons of sea salt, two teaspoons of dried oregano, one tablespoon of Calabrian chili paste, six cloves of garlic and a third of a cup or 80 grams of tomato paste. That's all going to be blended. We're also going to make a hot honey to drizzle on at the end. That is delicious. And that is a third of a cup of honey and two more tablespoons of Calabrian chili paste. One note about the Calabrian chili paste you buy. I've probably purchased over 10 brands in my life. There's places near me. There's one place sells about over 10 brands. Most of them are the same. I believe they all come from the same factory. Except for one or two of them. So the Chento version is much spicier. I like it, but it's much spicier. I don't know if they're adding other types of hot pepper in there. All the other ones, except for the Trader Joe's one, are pretty much the same. I think the Trader Joe's and the Tutto Calabria, those are much weaker to me. I'm using another brand. I'm just using the house brand from this place that's nearby. So we're going to mix third of a cup and two tablespoons of this together. We'll taste it. If you like something really spicy, you're probably going to want to add considerably more. And if you like something really on the mild side, you might want to just add a little bit of honey. But it's as simple as that. And it's as simple as doing that for your people, the people you're making this for and for yourself. We also have six potatoes. The recipe says five medium potatoes, but I had like two large ones and smaller ones here. So I just want enough potatoes. We're going to chop them up. That can fill the bottom of a baking dish. The one ingredient I forgot to tell you about was the olive oil. Actually, two ingredients I forgot to tell you about. I'm also going to use nice, fresh basil at the end to top it out. But basil and olive oil. It could all fit in one of these little cups for my blender, which is nice. I don't have to use the big blender, but, you know, use whatever will fit. So that's a third of a cup of white wine. I need a third of a cup of olive oil. So I'm going to eyeball it to right where that level was. OK, that's that one smallish onion. Make it like a paste almost that flavors it all. Six cloves of garlic. Am I going to be able to fit everything in here? Yes, I will. OK, and then here's the tomato paste. That is a third of a cup of tomato paste. So it's easy. It's all third ratios. OK, two tablespoons of honey, one tablespoon of the Calabrian chili paste and then two teaspoons of fine sea salt, not diamond crystal. OK, so just fine sea salt or iodized salt. So and two teaspoons of oregano. All right. So let's just get all the chicken thighs in the bag. And all I did with these chicken thighs, since I always prep all my ingredients the day before for these videos after I cut off all the skin and trim these things up, put them on this wire rack and it'll just dry out the thighs a little bit. You could even salt them overnight. If you do that, don't put any salt in the marinade then. It's like a super thick paste. I'm just going to pour it all in there. Look, say you're in a rush. I'm just going to tell you, you could probably do this for 20 minutes and it's still going to be good. But I recommend two hours or preferably overnight. We get questions sometimes about like, oh, can you over marinade chicken? I would say use 24 hours as, you know, that could over marinade, start breaking down. But it really depends what's in it, like what acidic component you have in it, how quickly it'll start to break down. And it doesn't break down. It just gets a little bit mushy. But, you know, Indian places that make the best kebabs, they're marinating that stuff for like 48 hours. OK, so just be careful what you read online and like Reddit. You know, there's a lot of wrong information. Like we'll get comments like, you marinated that for eight hours. It's done. You couldn't do, you can't do more than six hours. And I'm like, come on. You know, it's the reason I know it's not true is because because I'm the cook and I've been doing this forever. All right. It's going to get more flavor. It's going to get into this chicken. It's going to make it delicious. And I'm just mixing it up here now. So everything gets really well incorporated. I'm keeping it here because if the bag leaks, it won't go all over my fridge. All right. I'm going to zip this in the fridge. So if you like main course recipes, which I'm sure you do because you're watching this video, I want to let you know about our new cookbook, Sip and Feast Family Favorites. It has plenty of main courses in there. In addition to that, it has all the other sections you would expect to find in a cookbook. It is a beautiful cookbook, 256 pages, over 100 recipes. Beautiful photo. Nice instructions. Good story in every single recipe. It has U.S. customary and metric measurements. So everybody will be able to follow along with these easy recipes. Right above you is the link where you can buy it. You can get it on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and all other sellers. QR code if you're watching on TV, which I'm increasingly aware that the majority of you are watching on TV. It's also pinned in the comments and in the description. If you don't like cookbooks, you just like watching our videos. Buy it for a friend or family who does. Thanks. OK, so we can make the hot honey now or you can make it right before. I'm going to do a really simple way to do it. You can if you want, if you if you desire, like how it is in a bottle, you know, that really expensive bottle, that tiny bottle they sell you for like ten dollars in the store. You can put this over a simmer. OK, I would simmer it for a while to really extract the spice. And then you can strain it. And then you will have the clear hot honey that they make that that they sell in the store. And it's not just Mike's hot honey now. There's like dozens of brands that make it. I cleaned off everything now because we're not cooking this obvious. I'm not cooking this. So I want to all anything chicken gone. So now we're going to do a third of a cup of honey. And this I will measure. Well, it's probably right about that much. Yeah, probably the remaining bit of the container. I'll tell you some things like honey. I like to buy in these little squeeze bottles, even though Costco sells like a massive one. Every time I buy that one from Costco, it just turns to a rock. Then I got to like get a knife in there to get it out. And OK, so that's two tablespoons of the Calabrian chili paste. And remember, your mileage is going to vary. There are some differences in those brands that I spoke about before. But again, the one only one that I really, really is spicy. And I love it is that gentle one pinch of salt. All you got to do right here is taste it. And based off of like what you like and what your family members like, that's what you should do. Sweet and spicy. I would say that's probably more towards the sweet side for my palate. Probably add more spice in there. The other day I added cayenne pepper to it, and I always have cayenne pepper right next to me as my boost, my boosting agent. But I'm not going to do it for this one. I think that's a nice, nice hot honey. Put this off to the side. OK, you can set your oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit. The chicken has been in the fridge marinating for probably four hours because I made another video in between that one, which gave me the perfect amount of time. But it'll be nice and flavorful now we're here. But again, you know, overnight would be better. Nine by 13 baking dish, which is going to perfectly accommodate the eight chicken thighs. I'm doing nine, but it'll perfectly accommodate eight chicken thighs. And we want one layer of potatoes at the bottom. You can peel these potatoes if you like. If you do use them quickly or put them in water so they don't turn like brown. I'm not going to do that. I'm just going to leave the skin on. Skin's fine. Just make sure you clean them. And then I'll just go like this down the middle and I'll just chunk them like so about here is good. Now, if you have like a larger potato like this one. OK, just cut it to all equalize the same size pieces roughly. So everything cooks roughly at the same time. OK, just like that. All right. Just so everything is roughly the same size. All right. I cut five of them. I didn't cut the sixth one. Just get them in here. And I'm just using Yukon golds, but you can use other potatoes if you like. I like Yukon golds. All right. That's perfect. I want one layer, which is what I have here. You could have put it all in the baking dish. But, you know, when you take a cold baking dish and you put it in the oven, you risk cracking it. So that's just why I did it in the bag. So just take the chicken out of the bag for now. Try to leave some of the marinade in the bag and just pour that on here. OK, and just mix it on the potatoes like so. This is very similar to the Greek lemon chicken and potatoes that we did a while back. Many of you loved that recipe. It's just a little bit technique here because we're using tomato paste. We're going to end up covering it part of the way so we don't burn everything. Just trying to get the potatoes coated. And I'm just going to season with a nice amount of pepper, black pepper on it. OK, and a little bit of salt. We have the salt in the marinade and it's going to go on top of the potatoes, but still a little bit more salt. That's good. Uncovered right now, 20 minutes in the oven. This is going to par cook the potatoes, which some of you ran into a problem with the Greek lemon chicken and potatoes. I personally didn't, but that'll be a function of your oven temperature if your oven's accurate and how small your potatoes were. But by doing this, it's easier. You could also par boil them if you want. But I just throw them in right now for 20 minutes. OK, so that's 20 minutes. Give them a head start. And now we can just put the chicken right on top. Skin side up. Make sure you find which side is the skin side, because it's a little hard to see with all the marinade. Ideally, you probably want to just do eight so you're not overcrowding, but we'll make it work. Just cover it up here because of the tomato paste. It could burn a little bit. And we're cooking a little bit higher heat than when I did the chicken potatoes. Again, I'm referencing that video just because that was a very popular dish that we did, and it's a relatively recent video. It had like a million views. So I know many of you made that recipe and you and you loved it. It's one of the most highly rated recipes on our site. There is differences here. It's not that much, but it actually I guess it shows you you can you can get to the finish line a bunch of different ways. All right. We're going to cook this covered for 30 minutes at 425. So since this is like a one pan dish, I mean, essentially you have the meal just the chicken and potatoes, but it's really nice to serve it with a green, whether it's a salad or since we have the oven at 425, we can just roast a vegetable. You can do any vegetable you like. So you have some zucchini, some squash. That would be great. But I have some broccoli right here, three heads, and I just rinsed them and we'll just roast these up. So we'll just cut them cut them up. I mean, honestly, you can just do olive oil, salt and pepper. That's all you need for this. And it's it's delicious. We do this all the time whenever we're making meals like these type. We always try to think like, OK, the oven's at this temperature. What can we do now to just throw it in? Or you could get a little bit more complex and you can do a sauteed one. The either one is fine. But since you since you have the oven at that temp, it's easy. All right. So I'm just going to take a parchment paper lined baking sheet. This is a half sheet. So it'll it should fit what we have. OK, so just cut off a little end there. You can roast this, too, but it just takes a little bit longer. All right. And there's all my broccoli. All right. So I'm just going to try to drizzle oil like into the florets. How much oil am I using here? As much as I want till I get it how I want. That's the answer. That's the answer to all cooking. OK, salt. That's good for me. You might want less pepper. All right. Let's spread these out. You know, the more you crowd here, the less they're going to roast, the more they're going to steam. So try to separate them as best you can. And that's not really enough oil. As you can see, it's like pretty dry or absorbed. So I'll just go over each one with a little bit more. And I'm just using olive oil. Don't use avocado oil. Won't taste good. Not a fan of avocado oil, though I use it in some recipes. All right. So we're just going to hold off. And when those come out on the second round, because this will only take 15 minutes or so, but, you know, you could do it for 30 if you like. It's super charred. All right. Timing is perfect for that. OK, so that's been about 30 minutes. OK, and that's what we have. So now we want to be able to crisp them up here. So back in the oven for 20 minutes to 25. It doesn't really matter. You just want to get these thighs to at least 185 degrees internal temperature when you check with an instant read thermometer. And then what I like to do, you have to watch carefully, though. For the last couple of minutes, you can turn on the broiler. So I'm going to stick these in the oven and the broccoli right here that I have at the same time. Broccoli at 425 is going to take anywhere from like 15 to 20 minutes, depending on how you like it. OK, it's really as simple as that. I would check your broccoli probably earlier. And then your chicken will check too. And it will be done. It'll be delicious. OK, so it's been 20 minutes. I checked the broccoli. I flipped it. But, you know, maybe my oven, I've been saying this in the videos, some videos, maybe it's not exactly 425. You know, it depends how you like your broccoli. I mean, it's good like this. You might like it a lot more roasted than that. I mean, I personally do like it more roasted than that. Tara, is this OK for you or what? That's fine for me. Yeah. You can put it back in if you want it more. Yeah, I'm going to throw it back in and let me get the chicken out and we'll check with a thermometer. Take an instant read thermometer and just go into whatever one looks the fattest. 182. Yeah, 181. It could go a little bit more. So we'll throw this in for five more minutes. Also, and then I'll pull the broccoli out and then we will hit the broiler up on that because I need some color on top of there. That's not that's not how I how I want it. You can also get in here and you can take some of the juices because there's a lot of olive oil and all the juices and just get it on top. Each one throw this back in for another five. OK, I've been watching carefully. You have to watch carefully. It will it will burn. There we go. That tomato paste like marinade, it really will caramelize quickly. But it's what we want. Just check in here. OK, 186, 190. Sometimes I forget it's like I feel like every video is the same thing, but you might be watching for the first time. Chicken thighs, you want to make sure that they're cooked to about 180, 185 degrees Fahrenheit internal. OK, that's when you're in the thickest part of the meat because they have a lot of fat and just texture compared to a chicken breast. They can be cooked much longer. So it's just the composition of of a thigh. And, you know, you can cook them even to like over 200. It's like it's very hard to overcook these chicken thighs and they still stay juicy. It is very easy to overcook a chicken breast. I recommend you let this sit for about 10 minutes. What will happen is the juices and everything we're going to reabsorb into the potatoes. You can even mix it around with the chicken before you serve it. Also, we're going to put nice basil on top. You put this basil right onto any leaf on top of here. When it hits the heat, it's going to turn black immediately. So if you give it another 10 minutes, it might be OK, too. You can also chiffonade this and put it on to it like that if you like. And don't forget this. OK, so I'm just going to put a little bit on now, but I like to let people have it at the table. So it's really good. Now, it smells really good. It is amazing. It really is. And it's my first time because I didn't get to have it when you made it. OK, I was saying that I forgot that I thought you already had it. But all right, I guess I'm biasing you. Let's see what you think. OK. Oh, it's crispy. Yeah, because I broiled them at the end. Yeah. Oh, that's nice. Mm. Oh, my God. That is so good. I love this stuff. Like, and I love it with the Calabrian more than, you know, the one they sell in the store. What are they? What is the stuff in the store? Like, what are they? I think they're just using like a kind of cayenne or tabasco pepper or something. Yeah. And I didn't go over the potatoes also. You should check at the end here if they're tender, but they are because they're falling apart. But make sure you check that. If they're not, you can pull your chicken out and then just throw the potatoes back in the oven for another 10 minutes or so. They're tender or are they hard? No, they're good. Yeah. I thought they were because a couple of them were falling apart. You know, a lot of times when you make chicken and potatoes, as much as I love the chicken, I just always keep going after the potatoes. In this case, the chicken is the winner. And you're actually better off using thighs for a recipe like this. If you want to use a whole chicken, especially if it comes prepackaged in a bag and solution, take it out of the bag, dry the heck out of it. You're going to have to use like a lot of paper towels, then put it in your fridge overnight. You really got to dry a chicken out or it's just going to steam in the oven. It's it's actually a really big part of whether you have good chicken, potatoes or bad chicken and potatoes. So I like I actually can't stop eating it. OK, well, that's good. Let me have a piece of broccoli. So it's a boring, not a boring, but it's a neutral to the powerfulness of all this, which I think is good for a side. But you could also do this. Yeah, well, OK, there you go. Because I'm telling you, the hot honey is. And it's not hot, right? There's like a nice spice. It's not. It's perfect combo. And has like a really good Calabrian. Yeah. Flavor. Calabrian chilies are smoky. You can buy them like three ways. You can get them whole in the store, like dried. They'll sell them in a huge bag. You can buy you can buy them in the jar where they come whole, too. They're pickled. It'll be like an olive oil, depending on the brand. And then you get the paste, which is just a mashed up version of them. We get a lot of questions about this, too, about which one to buy. I recommend you just buy all three and see. They all have different applications. I mean, I think I think, you know, how I'm going to rate this. I mean, this is outstanding. I'm giving it a 10. Nice. I just I actually can't stop. Yeah, it's so good. I hope you make it. I hope you enjoy it. I hope you buy our cookbook. You should buy our cookbook, especially if you're making it to the end of these videos. That means you're like one of the biggest fans in the world. You listen to my babbling for 20 minutes. That's that's that's impressive. Right. Yeah. We'll see you next time.