Mama Romano's Baked Lemon Chicken
- Total Time
- 1 hour 15 minutes
- Rating
- Comments
- Read comments
Advertisement
Ingredients
- 3½pounds chicken breasts and thighs, skinned
- ¼teaspoon salt
- Freshly ground black pepper
- ⅓cup flour for dredging
- 2tablespoons olive oil
- 3cups thinly sliced onions
- 1½tablespoons thinly sliced garlic
- 8sprigs fresh thyme
- 1½cups chicken stock
- 2lemons
Preparation
- Step 1
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
- Step 2
Cut the chicken breasts in half, and season all chicken pieces with salt and pepper. Dredge in the flour.
- Step 3
Heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil in large ovenproof skillet or Dutch oven over medium heat. Saute the chicken pieces until golden brown. Transfer to a plate, and reserve.
- Step 4
Discard the fat from the skillet, and add the remaining olive oil. Add the onions and garlic, and cook over low heat for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the onions are very soft and lightly browned. Remove from heat.
- Step 5
Spread the thyme over the onions and garlic. Arrange the browned chicken pieces side by side over the onions in the skillet. Add the chicken stock.
- Step 6
Cut one lemon into thin slices, remove the seeds, and place one slice atop each piece of chicken. Cut other lemon in half and squeeze through a strainer over the chicken. Return the skillet to the heat, and bring the stock to a simmer. Cover the pot, and bake in the oven for 5 to 15 minutes, basting the chicken with the cooking liquid.
Private Notes
Comments
classic comfort food well worth the effort. better when you make it a day before.
I’ve made this dish many times and love it. I find using an oven-proof skillet yields better results than a Dutch oven. The chicken skin and lemon slices brown much better in the oven if in a skillet.
Dredging and braising the chicken before baking over a moisture-rich mixture made this recipe a winner. A couple of mods that worked out well: instead of putting the salt directly onto the chicken (which can draw out moisture), I mixed the salt into the dredging flour. I also lightly sprinkled sugar over the braised chicken just before putting into the oven to bake (the humectant properties of sugar can draw moisture to the chicken).
Advertisement