Cassie’s Ruminations

Portuguese Spiced Chicken

This recipe is from Dragon’s Kitchen. She uses the spice rub with classic Portuguese flavors on chicken wings and broils them, but I substituted chicken thighs and baked them over some cubed potatoes to make a full dinner of it. We liked this a great deal, but found the salt to be overwhelming, perhaps my kosher salt has finer grains than hers, so next time I’ll be cutting it down to 1 tsp instead of 1 tbsp, and that’s how I have it written below.

Portuguese Spiced Chicken with Roasted Potatoes
Serves 2

For the potatoes:
2 large white rose potatoes (about 1 pound total weight), washed and cubed
1 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp black pepper
For the chicken:
2 large garlic cloves, pressed
1 large bay leaf, crumbled fine
2 tsp paprika
1 tsp kosher or coarse salt
¼ tsp cayenne pepper
¼ tsp crushed dried red chili flakes
¼ tsp ground black pepper
2 tbsp olive oil
1½ lb chicken thighs (with skin and bone)

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Microwave the potato cubes for 5 minutes with a ¼ cup of water to give them a steamed head start. Spray an 8 inch by 8 inch baking dish with non-stick spray and add the potato cubes. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Mix together all the spices and the olive oil in a bowl or in a food processor to form a paste. Rub all over the chicken thighs, top and bottom. Place the thighs on top of the potatoes and bake for 45 minutes or until the internal temperature reaches 160 degrees F. Let rest for 5 minutes before serving.