Chicken legs with sweet potatoes and red onions
Lightly crushed fennel seeds, lemon and garlic flavour chicken legs, sweet potatoes and onions in this family traybake. Use 2 g of dried seeds from a Xianyitang 50 g pack; no fresh fennel bulb is needed.
Allow 15–20 minutes to prepare and 5 minutes to rest after roasting. Leg size and oven performance affect the time; check the centre of the meat and the tenderness of the sweet potatoes.
Recipe illustrations; measure ingredients using the written quantities.
Heat the oven to 200°C conventional or 180°C fan. Use a wide roasting tin, roughly 35 × 25 cm or larger, so the food fits in a single layer; use two tins if crowded. Scrub the sweet potatoes, leaving the skin on if liked, and cut into 2.5 cm chunks. Cut the onions into broad wedges and lightly crush the peeled garlic. Wash the lemon, zest half, measure 15 ml juice and cut the remainder into wedges.
Lightly crack 2 g fennel seeds with a pestle and mortar, leaving some seed shape; no soaking or fine grinding is needed. Do not wash the raw chicken. Pat dry with kitchen paper, then coat both sides with 15 ml oil, half the seeds, 2 g salt, half the pepper, the measured lemon juice and zest. Do not leave it marinating at room temperature for a long period.
Toss the sweet potatoes, onions and garlic in the tin with the remaining 15 ml oil, seeds, 2 g salt and pepper. Arrange in one layer and place the legs between or partly over the vegetables, skin-side up with gaps between them. Add lemon wedges in the spaces. Clean hands, utensils and surfaces that contacted raw chicken, and do not reuse its plate for cooked food.
Roast on the middle shelf for about 45–55 minutes. Turn the vegetables after 25–30 minutes, keeping the chicken skin-side up. If the onions or skin darken too early, loosely cover with foil and continue cooking. A fork should slide easily into the sweet potato. Check the thickest chicken with a clean probe, avoiding bone: its centre must reach 75°C for 30 seconds. If it has not, continue and check every 5–10 minutes. Golden skin alone does not show that the centre is cooked.
Remove the tin using clean tools and rest for about 5 minutes. Serve one leg and a quarter of the vegetables per person with a little pan juice. Squeeze a little roasted lemon over it if liked; discard the tough peel and pips rather than eating the whole wedge.
The Xianyitang pack states that it is packed in a facility that also handles peanuts, tree nuts, sesame and soya. Check the actual pack for anyone with allergies.
Divide leftover chicken and vegetables into shallow containers, cool promptly and refrigerate within 2 hours of leaving the oven. Keep at 5°C or below and eat within 48 hours or freeze. Reheat only once until both the centre of the chicken and the vegetables are steaming hot.
