Every week I receive MANY emails from various blogs, websites, and magazines with ideas of recipes to cook for the week. I actually think it’s about time for me to organize my ‘to make’ list, particularly as the seasons start to make an early change up here in New England!

I had some leftover buttermilk from an experiment with fried chicken this past weekend and was excited to see this buttermilk roasted chicken recipe come through on the NY Times email.  I haven’t done much with buttermilk in the past, and really wasn’t sure how this would turn out.

In the end, this chicken had lots of flavor, and it was a great way to use up the end of the carton of buttermilk. That said, I wish I had used thicker pieces of chicken (as the original recipe recommended) as the thighs didn’t have that final juicy flavor that I had hoped.  The flavor, however, was excellent! I’ll be sure to keep buttermilk on the pantry rotation in order to try more of the variations below. Any other ideas or favorites?

Ingredients:

• Chicken thighs
• 2 cups of buttermilk
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 2 cloves garlic – crushed
• 1 tablespoon of crushed peppercorns
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 2 tablespoons rosemary
• 1 tablespoon honey

Steps and Notes:

1. Prepare the buttermilk marinade by combining the following in a plastic bag: buttermilk, oil, garlic, salt, pepper, rosemary, and honey.
2. Add the chicken and refrigerate overnight
   • I refrigerated it for two days, which turned out well
3. Place the chicken on a rack and let the marinade drip off onto a plate.
4. Then, cover a cookie sheet with tin foil and place the rack on the sheet. Drizzle with 2 tablespoons of oil and then bake at 400 for 30 minutes.
   • Note: if using a whole chicken, as the original recipe suggests, adjust the cooking time here
5. Let cool for 10 minutes before serving.

Thoughts for Next Time:

• Try this with a full butterflied chicken. The thighs were OK, but I think it would be juicer with thicker pieces of meat
• Find a way to make a crispier skin on the chicken, either by coating it
• Make these fried chicken tenders!
• Create a dipping sauce for extra flavor.