Sheet Pan Harvest Chicken on Pan-Juice Toast | Food Wishes

Hello, this is Chef John from foodwishes.com with Sheep Pan Harvest Chicken on Pan-Juiced Toast. That's right, we are elevating Sheep Pan Chicken, literally and figuratively, by roasting the chicken on top of bread, which soaks in all the goodness dripping off the chicken. And when we pair that with the meat and caramelized vegetables, we're talking about a very comforting, satisfying, and delicious meal. And to get started, we're going to make a very flavorful and voluminous marinade for the chicken, which includes a whole bunch of garlic, a big spoon of dried Italian herb blend, featuring oregano, rosemary, thyme, basil, and sage. We'll also do some freshly ground black pepper, some smoked paprika, some garlic powder, a generous amount of salt, followed by the customary, a few shakes of cayenne, or maybe more than a few, depending on our mood. And then I'm going to squeeze in the juice of two lemons, since we definitely need some acidity here to make things work. But it doesn't have to be lemon. Right, sometimes I'll use rice vinegar, or sherry vinegar, or champagne vinegar. So use whatever you want. I mean, you guys are after all the winner of your chicken dinners. But no matter what you use, we'll finish up with some olive oil, and then we'll take a whisk and give this a thoughtful and thorough mixing. And then we'll set it aside, and we'll prep our bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs. And to do that, we will flip them over and find the bone, since we're going to make two cuts through the skin, in the center about an inch apart, all the way down to the bone, at a 90 degree angle. And we do this for a few reasons, all of them good. It's going to help our marinade penetrate in, and our thighs are going to cook a little bit faster and more evenly. Plus, I just think it looks cooler. And while I hope you don't, if you end up using breast for this, you will definitely skip this step. But anyway, once our thighs have been slashed, we will transfer those into our marinade. And as we do, we'll flip them over to make sure they're well coated on both sides. And once they've all been placed in, we'll do that again, just to make sure they're nicely coated. And we have marinade going into every nook, and of course cranny. And once that's been accomplished, we want to finish with the skin side up. And then what we'll do is cover this, and we'll pop it in the fridge, and we'll leave it in there anywhere between one hour and 12 hours. And as usual, when it comes to marination time, the longer it is, the stronger it is. But this still tastes great just after one hour. And if you're wondering, I ended up doing mine for three. But however long we go, to prep our sheet pan, we'll place down six nice thick slices of bread, that we will drizzle generously with olive oil on both sides. And ideally this bread is kind of stale, which makes it nice and absorbent, which is what we want. But a good trick if you're using fresh bread, is just pop these slices in the toaster on the low setting, which is going to dry it out nicely. Oh, and I should mention, feel free to do this with melted butter if you want, and you'll have something a little richer and more decadent. And once our bread is oiled, or buttered, and in position, we will top each piece with one thigh. And if everything goes according to plan, we should still have plenty of the marinade in the bowl, which is why we made such a generous amount. Since what we'll do once our chicken's been platformed, is transfer whatever cut up vegetables we're going to be roasting with the chicken into the bowl, which for me are going to be some halved little creamer potatoes, as well as some halved brussels sprouts. I also had a couple patty pan squash I cut up, as well as some beautiful little chanterelle mushrooms. And then I finished up with some sliced red onion, and some sweet red pepper. And once everything's in, we'll take a spatula and give this a good mix, trying to coat everything evenly and thoroughly with the marinade. And once we feel like that's happened, we'll go ahead and scatter those around our thighs. And it doesn't really matter with the mushrooms, peppers, and onions, but if you can, try to evenly divide the Okay, if you do a big pile of those in one spot, they might not cook at the same rate as the ones that are spread out. And because I want these vegetables deeply roasted and well caramelized, I've cut things into fairly small pieces. But if you don't want yours to roast that deeply, you can simply cut those things into larger pieces. Although for this kind of thing, I think we always want to err on the side of making sure things are roasted tender. So be careful not to go too big. And that's it. This is now ready to transfer into the upper center of a 450 degree oven for about 45 minutes, or until our chickens cook through and our veggies are caramelized. And it hopefully looks like this. And I knew my chicken was done because I just knew. But we definitely want to give the potatoes a poke to make sure those are nice and tender. And if your chickens cook, but your veggies need a little more time, just go ahead and remove those two plates and pop the pan back in the oven for a few minutes. But since everything was perfect, I went ahead and finished up with some sliced cherry tomatoes, which of course are optional, like everything in this. But those little cool bursts of sweet tangy juice really does add a wonderful contrast to the roasted vegetables, and the rich savory meat, and of course our pan juice toast. And then for some final touches, I did a drizzle of olive oil over the top, just to shine things up. And then I finished with a scattering of freshly chopped Italian parsley, and my sheet pan harvest chicken on pan juice toast was ready to enjoy. So I grabbed a spatula and served up, and made sure to add plenty of those roasted potatoes and veggies to the plate. And please note how dry and clean the pan is. Usually you'd see a fair amount of chicken fat and pan drippings on there, but not this time, since that bread has soaked up every drop. And if you wanted, you could certainly enjoy this with some chicken gravy, or even just a simple squeeze of lemon. But as far as I'm concerned, this does not need anything else. Right, when you take a bite of the chicken with a piece of the toast, you realize that pan juice soaked bread is the sauce. And not only are the flavors amazing, but the textures are as well. Right, the sides and bottom of the toast are kind of crispy and crusty, and then inside you have something that's very soft and moist and custard-like. And just the chicken and these roasted vegetables would be fantastic. But when you factor in this bread, everything becomes extra special. Oh, and make sure you pay attention to proper distribution. All right, just about every bite of chicken should be taken with a bite of toast, so please plan accordingly. Oh, and as you might know, I generally ignore the vegetable side dishes during these videos, and tend to focus on the main components. But here, that was pretty much impossible, since those roasted potatoes and brussel sprouts and squash were just so delicious, having been tossed in that marinade before this went in the oven. So I especially love that part of this technique. And because we seasoned that so aggressively, I didn't even need to sprinkle any extra salt over the vegetables. So that marinade is a keeper. And that little bit of charring we got on the onions and peppers adds a beautifully subtle bittersweet element, that as usual, amplifies the other flavors. So to summarize, I loved everything about this, especially what we're calling pan-juiced toast, which I'm going to flip over here so you can see how beautifully that crisps up in the pan. And then before we sign off, let me remind you, this is not really a recipe, it's more of a technique. And no matter what you use for a marinade, or what herbs and spices you include, or what kind of potatoes and veggies you roast around the chicken, the method here is going to work exactly the same. So maybe try it like this first, and then start experimenting. But whether you personalize this or not, it is a great technique, and I really do hope you give it a try soon. So please follow the links below for the ingredient amounts, a printable written recipe, and much more info as usual. And as always, enjoy!