Caribbean-Spiced Chicken

If you are the kind of person who takes one look at the ingredient list for any recipe and decides if you will try it or not based on the number of ingredients you see, I urge you to think again today.  Yes, there are alot of ingredients in this recipe, but as you take a close look you will see the first item is the chicken and the rest are the marinade.  All that is involved to prepare this is putting the chicken in a baking dish, placing the remaining ingredients into a blender or a food processor, and pressing pulse.  For that little bit of effort, the pay-off is huge.  The chicken is out of this world--moist, tender, flavorful, and packed with goodness. 

I marinated the chicken for a good part of the day.  I began marinating the chicken when I was cleaning up the kitchen from breakfast, turned the chicken every time I went to the kitchen throughout the day, and began the actual cooking process as I was starting the sides.  That's minimal effort in my book, yet you will find yourself licking the sauce off each and every finger during dinner and wondering if you should really have just one more.  Just sayin'.

INGREDIENTS:
3 1/2 pounds chicken legs
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
2 tablespoons cider vinegar
1 small yellow onion, chopped
3 green onions, whites and greens chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon firmly packed brown sugar
2 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves
2 serrano chiles, seeded and minced
2 teaspoons ground allspice
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon Kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon Freshly ground pepper

DIRECTIONS:
1.  Rinse chicken legs and pat dry with paper towels.  Place in large nonreactive dish.

2.  To make the marinade:  In blender or food processor, combine oil, soy sauce, lime juice, vinegar, yellow onion, green onions, garlic, brown sugar, thyme, peppers, allspice, coriander, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, salt, and pepper.  Process until smooth.

3.  Pour the marinade into the dish holding the chicken, turn to coat, cover, and refrigerate for 4-6 hours, turning chicken once or twice.

4.  About 30 minutes before roasting, remove chicken from refrigerator.  Place chicken legs on baking sheet.  Spoon 1 tablespoon marinade over each leg.  If you would like to use the remainder of the marinade, place in a small saucepan over medium-high heat; bring to boil.  Lower heat and simmer for 5 minutes; however, I discarded it.

5.  Preheat oven to 375 degrees F and roast the chicken for 35 minutes, or until fork pressed in thigh releases clear juices.

6.  Serve immediately with fruit salsa....I'll post a recipe for that tomorrow:-)

Recipe adapted from William Sonoma Essentials of Roasting
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This recipe is linked to Domestically Divine at Far Above Rubies