For this Chinese chicken thigh recipe I teamed up with a local company called Freshly Spiced. Freshly Spiced are a company in Nottingham that create amazing natural spice blends without any additives, from scratch. They have a huge range of different blends and are so much tastier than regular shop bought ones. All the packets are multi serve portions and can all be resealed to keep them fresh. They are available to buy online and in selected Deli’s, Farm Shop’s, Garden Centre’s and Butchers across Nottinghamshire. You can check out a VERY old review of some of their blends in an earlier blog post I wrote HERE. Apologies but on reflection the photos are terrible! I have definitely improved a little over the last three years!
The 5 spice blend consists of Cinnamon, Cloves, Fennel, Star Anise, Sichuan Peppercorns and comes in a 25g pouch.
I am really starting to love chicken thighs. For years I was purely a breast girl (wahey!) but I am starting to love these little morsels of meat. Eleanor’s dad cooked with chicken thigh a lot while we were in France and the tender, juicy part of the chicken that I had always overlooked has become a staple part of my diet. I am never doing back to using purely chicken breast in recipes now. Plus thigh meat is SO much cheaper than breast.
This recipe feeds two very comfortably as part of a main meal and can be prepared in the morning and chucked into the oven after work for a quick meal.
Marinade the chicken for at least 2 hours to ensure the flavour gets right into that chicken!
Ingredients
6 Chicken thighs, skin on
1 lemon, juice and zest
2 tbsp honey
2 tbsp Freshly Spiced 5 spice blend
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tsp sea salt
1 dried kaffir lime leaf, crushed
1 fresh chilli, finely sliced
Method
1) Mix all the ingredients into a bowl until combined.
2) Add in the chicken thighs and massage the marinade into the skin and all around the chicken.
3) Cover the bowl and leave to marinate in the fridge for at least 2 hours (or as long as possible).
4) To cook, preheat the oven to 180°c and line a baking tray with parchment.
5) Drizzle a little oil and a pinch of salt over the chicken skin to ensure that it goes nice and crisp in the oven.
6) Cook in the middle of the oven for 30-40 minutes until cooked through.
7) Serve with veggies and lime and coriander rice.
*Thanks to Freshly Spiced for providing me with the spice mix. As always your mixes are delicious and you can really taste the difference between these and store bought mixes.
