The Best Chicken Recipe of the Year!

We have the chicken of the year. I've been doing this for 15 years and this is I believe one of my favorite chicken recipes ever. There's a very nice skin and then below there's a peanut butter and thyme mixture and I also made some twists for the veggies so that they are perfectly cooked and the taste is 10 times better than you've ever eaten. How can you say that Refika? You might say you'll see the tricks that I've made in the video and you'll understand hopefully. How do we start? First, we start with the veggies. Normally when they are cooked under a chicken or a turkey, they cook really well but they lack something. The taste is not like 100 but it's somewhere 70 or 60 as if they are boiled in a very nice juice but I want the brownness, I want the caramelization effect as well. So for that, we first cut our potatoes but we do not take the skin away because we don't want any food waste and the skin of the potatoes give a very nice taste as well. So we just cut the baby potatoes into half, put a bit of oil and we start to fry them on the pan. So there's going to be a bit of brownness. For the carrots, we have to take the outside skin but it's not by peeling, we just put a bit of knife and take the outside skin that way and the food weight is going to be minimalized that way as well. They're going to go to our small compost machine and become a great compost. I'll show you that later. Anyways, then they start to fry a bit. Brussels sprouts because they don't have a lot of strength, I just put them at the end. Cut onions into four pieces, I do not cut the top part so that they don't fall apart because they are connected from one place. Also put a lot of garlic, it's going to give a great smell and incredible taste to everything. Put a bit of salt, I let them brown. That brownness is going to be like the meat has its reaction. We have this caramelization reaction, it's going to increase the flavor of the veggies. It's not going to cook them but it's going to increase their flavor. And when they're cooling down, we start to have a mixture. The mixture is going to be three tablespoons of butter, about 200 grams of salted peanuts, a bit of ginger. I like the ginger to come to my teeth a bit but not too much. My ginger was quite fresh so I roughly chopped it when it gets grinded. It's going to have that lemony flavor in the chicken and it's going to lighten up the whole thing incredibly. Put them into the grinder for a while, they're going to be in big chunks. Then add a bit of thyme. Also put two dried peppers. You might not find that pepper everywhere in the world and it's going to have a bit of spiciness. You can put a hot red pepper or a powdered pepper as well but powdered pepper is going to heat everything. This is going to hit you and then run away. When they're all nice and chunky, they're going to smell incredibly. Then I take my chicken, start from the neck. With my fingers, I slowly open and go all the way to the thighs. You have to use your fingers back and forth like a windshield. Take the thighs that tie the skin and the meat together and you're going to do that like your windshield fingers. Then I also put some lemon around the chicken. You get a knife, you cut a few places and also to the thighs and a bit of salt. Saltiness is going to be soaked by the meat and it's going to increase its taste. It's going to reduce juices a bit but the taste is going to be better. Then take a handful of this beautiful mixture, start from the thighs and then add it in the middle. So there's going to be a one thick layer everywhere on top of the chicken. I take my oven bag, first put my veggies in on top of the chicken. Tie my oven bag, make some holes in it and put it in the oven. It's going to be heated in the oven in 180 degrees for one and a half hours. Top and bottom, no fans. By the way, if you do this a day before or in the morning, you'll be done and when your guests are coming or on the time you want to sit to the table, go back about one and a half hours or about two hours. You can then put it into the oven but if you're going to put it in the refrigerator for a while, make sure that you have to take it out of the refrigerator. The chicken before goes to the oven should come back to the room temperature. So an hour before maybe. When we take our chicken out of the oven, first we cut the side of the bag very small. This way, I'm going to be able to take the water out without messing up the whole thing and mixing it up with the veggies. I take the water out, put the chicken and the veggies on another tray and then pour the water on the tray to another cup and then bring it back. Then take the cooking bag out. After this, we need a bit of molasses and I'm going to use this gravy a bit to loosen this molasses. Instead of molasses, you can use maple syrup, that would be really nice. This is rather thick. On top, it's already really beautiful but especially on the sides, it's a little whiter. So to those white parts, I am putting mostly this molasses mixture here to these parts. I also got some butter and fat from the mixture. One last bite. Everything on top of it, it will be more shiny. To the darkest part, I don't put much. The rest of the mixture goes to my veggies. They're so well. If you like guys, you can put some wine. Finally, last but not least, some peanuts goes all around. This adds a crunch. The veggies are going to be creamy, the chicken is going to be very soft. Just the skin is going to be crunchy and peanuts are going to be crunchy and I like that. So, I put it to the grill and the fan together. I put the oven to 220 degrees. Kahnite is going to be at below. This is going to cook until the thermometer is going to pop up which is going to be five to eight minutes. The sides are also going to brown but watch out if you keep it too much, you might burn the top so that's really important. While this is cooking, we're going to make this beautiful gravy sauce. For the gravy, we put a tablespoon of butter and I let it melt totally. Then add a heap tablespoon of flour, slowly cook it. First, it's going to be light brown then it starts to darken and I like that darkens and there's going to be a nutty smell. Meanwhile, my gravy is resting so on top there's going to be a lot of fat. I don't want my gravy to be heavy so I take a bit of the fat. I don't totally take it because its oil is going to float. You take the part of the oil out. After my flour and butter is brown, I add rest of the sauce and becomes gorgeous but it's not enough. There's some saltiness because the gravy got some salt of the nuts and veggies. It needs a bit more salt but I also want to increase the taste and to do that, I use soy sauce. You might say Refika, why did you do it? But it makes a huge difference in such an easy way on a rush which is usually a new year's eve rush and you want the good taste without a big hassle so soy sauce does that for us. I also add a teaspoon of vinegar. You can also add a bit of wine if you like, that will balance the taste as well so it becomes gorgeous. If you have lumps, have a whisk and make sure before it boils, whisk it really well so that there are no lumps. When your chicken is ready and when you're ready to serve, you can understand the good chicken by just taking the thigh with your hands. If you don't have to cut it and it can move, that's how it works. When you pull it, it directly comes to your hand. For example, I can cook the chicken in 210 degrees celsius and will cook probably in 40 to 50 minutes but I wouldn't have that effect and then we put a bit of veggies, put a bit of sauce on top and it becomes gorgeous. When you're serving the breast, there's a thin bone in the middle of the breast. You have to put the knife just a little on the side of that breast and then cut it that way. This is gonna be served for two so I'm going to cut this part in half. Use a bread knife, what it does is, it's for the things that are crunchy outside and soft inside. Same as our chicken right now, the skin is crunchy and hard, below is soft so it's better to use this bread knife. These parts cut the skin, it will be easy for you to move on. Guys, this is the perfection. Look, this is a skin that everyone would love to eat and this in the middle is full of taste and with the gravy and the veggies too. I have become a chef after age 30 and before I was trying other people's recipes from everywhere and believe me, the balance of how the chicken cooks, how the veggies are really well, easiness of the sauce compared to the taste is such a nice balance. I hope you'll get the chance to try this recipe and if you try, you will really know what I'm talking about and if you have watched this video until now and if you're gonna do this recipe, we are gonna send all our love to you guys with a big kiss. This year is gonna be a hard year probably for everyone in the world, economically, politically, this and that and everything. There's this saying that the goodness will win after so many years. I hope the goodness in us is gonna win over the world. We're gonna flow through the harnesses because they will exist eventually. We'll flow like water above them. Take care.