LEBANESE BAKED CHICKEN (FRAREJ)

Lebanese Baked Chicken (Frarej) image

How to make Lebanese Baked Chicken (Frarej)

Provided by @MakeItYours

Number Of Ingredients 8

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Ingredients

4 T. olive oil
1 cut up whole chicken or 8 pieces
4 oz. onion cut into wedges (separate layers)
2 Roma tomatoes cut into wedges
6-10 cloves garlic, (leave half of them whole, mince the rest)
½ tsp. oregano
Juice of 1 lemon
Dash salt and pepper

Steps:

Preheat oven to 500º. Cut up chicken into separate pieces making 8 pieces in all. I never use the back as I simmer that for broth to freeze for other purposes or it becomes dinner for my dogs. :) Drizzle 1 T. of the olive oil on the bottom of a very large baking/roasting pan (I use a 12 x 15 stainless steel metal pan). I do not recommend glass/ceramic wre for such high temperature cooking. If you don't yet have a really large, good quality stainless steel roasting pan, I think it is one of the single most important investments you can make in your cooking tools. Place chicken skin side up in the pan. You don't want any overlapping or crowding. I do not recommend using a glass or ceramic baking dish at the very high temperature called for in this recipe. Glass can be unpredictable, can even break, above 450º. Crowding of this chicken and the surrounding veggies will result in deeper pan juices around them and that will impede crisping of the chicken. Place tomato wedges around and in between chicken pieces. Do the same with the onion pieces and add the garlic. If using the root vegetables, cut them up and place them evenly around the chicken. Squeeze the lemon over everything in the pan. Drizzle remaining olive oil over the pan contents as well. Lightly sprinkle some oregano over all (about 1/4-½ tsp, I don't measure it). Bake 30 minutes at 500º. Baste with pan juices, lower heat to 350º and bake another 20 minutes or to internal temperature of the chicken is 170º on a meat thermometer. Baste with pan juices just before serving if desired. I like to place the juices in a gravy boat and have it on the table for basting the drier breast meat. If there are any juices leftover, I freeze them and add them to the bottom of the pan next time I make this recipe (which is often!). I like to serve this with a Tabouleh parsley salad.