Girl Next Shore Cooks: baked chicken with peri-peri marinade

Let's talk about chicken. I'm not too keen on it. I rarely order it when I eat out and I especially don't like cooking it for fear of salmonella (which possibly explains my egg abhorrence gene as well). Whenever a recipe calls for boneless chicken I use Quorn meat-free chicken style pieces instead, and I've only really cooked one-pot dishes with chicken on the bone (ie nothing involving any sort of bird massaging/rubbing).

A playful chat with Plaid Boy hinted the need to hone our cooking skills so we can survive living together. So, inspired by some recipes he cooked on his last visit, I've started experimenting in the kitchen and found myself with lots of, well, chicken. 

Now, I've always wanted to be the type of lady who can cook up a proper roast with all the trimmings so I decided to make baked/roast chicken. The only thing is I haven't exactly been friendly with our oven unless it's for chips or, God forbid, frozen pizza. I'd chicken out (har) for fear of burning the house down. But hey. Something's gotta give. 

The recipes I found on the internet were a bit confusing as the timings and quantities are all different. But there was no turning back. Armed with 750g of chicken thighs and drumsticks and some spices, I decided to wing it. (Har)

First, I marinated my chicken for two hours. For the full marinade, I used:

• 1 tbsp Nando's hot peri-peri sauce
• 1 tbsp hot paprika powder
• 1 tbsp lime juice
• 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• 2 tsp hot chilli powder
• 2 tsp Maggi Magic Sarap (you can buy this in Oriental Shops)
• 1 tsp garlic pepper
• 1/2 tsp mixed herbs

I placed the chicken pieces skin down on a baking dish with some chopped onions, bay leaves, and garlic then chucked the whole thing in the oven, preheated at 200°C.

After 40 minutes, the chicken wasn't quite where I wanted to be and there was still a lot of juice. I turned them around so the skin would get a bit of a crisp. As per my girl friends' instructions (they were coaching me from all over town), I cranked up the temperature to 230°C and waited for another 15 minutes, chucking some asparagus stalks in the last 5.

The girls were right - the juices eventually dried up. The skin, however, didn't crisp up as much as I liked. BUT!
That chicken was seriously SOOOO tender!

Like literally, fall off the bone tender. It was the most amazing dish I've ever made and I was really quite stunned at how easy it was. Didn't even have to touch the chicken at all.

Served with aligue mixed veg and aligue couscous, this was definitely a winger meal. *bow*

I'm hoping to get the skin crispier the next time around and hoping to get the meat just as tender. I'm keen to experiment more with recipes and marinades and temperatures. What this space, folks. This chick's got birds on fire.