chicken

the best barbecued sticky chicken with lemon and garlic

servings
4

method

These chicken thighs are slow-cooked to start off with then finished hard and fast on the barbecue. Once you’ve learned to cook meat like this on the barbecue you’ll never look back. Cooking the thighs all the way through in foil first means you’ll be confident that they’re cooked through and you’ll be free to concentrate on getting that lovely layer of sticky flavor from the roasted lemon and garlic glaze.

Get your barbecue on about an hour before you want to cook and preheat your oven to 180ºC/350ºF/gas 4.

Season the chicken well with salt and pepper and drizzle with a little olive oil. Get a big double layer of tin foil and pop the thighs in the middle with the bulb of garlic. Chop one of your lemons in half and pop this in too. Wrap the chicken up then put your foil parcel on a baking tray and into the hot oven for 35 minutes until the chicken pulls away easily from the bone – if you have to tug at it it’s not ready, so pop it back in the oven for another 5 minutes or so.

When done, carefully take the chicken out off the oven and unwrap it. By this time your barbecue should be at the perfect temperature – a good medium heat – so get your chicken on to start charring.

While this is happening, get on with your sticky glaze. Carefully, clove by clove, squeeze the sweet roasted garlic out of its papery skin into a pestle and mortar. Carefully squeeze in the juice of your roasted lemon halves too. Give this a good bash up and season with salt and pepper then add a good lug of olive oil and mix until you have a thick paste. Now squeeze in the juice of the other lemon so you get 2 levels of lemon flavor – one sweet and roasted, the other fresh and zingy.

Use your rosemary sprigs to brush the paste onto the chicken, basting and turning for about 10 minutes so you are building up a lovely layer of sticky garlicky sweetness and a wonderful golden brown colour.

Once you’re happy with the chicken, use tongs to move it to a nice platter then top with the rocket or pea shoots and any remaining marinade and tuck in!

chicken-thighs">Watch this video online.

ingredients

• 8 chicken thighs, bone-in and skin on, preferably free range or organic
• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• olive oil
• 1 bulb of garlic, whole
• 2 lemons
• 5 sprigs of fresh rosemary, tied together
a good handful of rocket or pea shoots, washed and spun-dry

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tried this recipe or a similar one? share your tips...

1. by Kumar on Thu 05 Jan 2012 @ 07:08

Hi Jamie, I am your die hard fan of your programs. Recently i had watch your one of program Food Revolution at US, its so amazing that you have control the hole city. Can you help me, I need recipe of chicken barbecue marinade with red wine. Please send to me. Thanks <br /> Kumar from Malaysia.

2. by Haley on Wed 17 Aug 2011 @ 23:29

I will be using breasts instead of thighs for lower fat content. I cant wait to try it!!

3. by Ashika on Tue 05 Jul 2011 @ 10:35

i still haven't tried this one but m really interested in cooking. i would love if i could get more recipes so that i can improve my cooking.

4. by Maizy Parkes on Sun 05 Jun 2011 @ 14:39

Loved this recipe , iv made it everynight for 2 weeks.it goes down well a storm for my boyfriend.

5. by William on Sat 09 Jan 2010 @ 23:43

Great recipe, but the oven time for the chicken seems off to me. I would recommend at least doubling the time in the oven. The chicken thighs I used were perhaps bigger than those in Jamie's, but I think a head of garlic would have trouble roasting in 35 minutes at 350. In order to get it to fall off of the bone, it needs at least an hour, if not a little more.

6. by Christine on Tue 03 Nov 2009 @ 12:12

Love this recipe it really is yummy and easy. Our garlic didnt go mushy and our oven is pretty good so unsure what happened here. We ended up processing the garlic mixture but still yummy. Also lazy on getting the Rosemary sprigs...

7. by anna on Thu 09 Jul 2009 @ 05:15

"Real" bbq'ing??
Get real. Food is about enjoying cooking and having people enjoy what you cook for them.
This recipe gives a great result.

8. by Robert on Fri 03 Jul 2009 @ 21:09

aw, man - that's a cheat.

Not that I haven't cheated on occasion, I still do ribs sometimes by slow cooking is sauce, then finishing on the grill.

But there *is* a quality difference.

Unless and until you can go raw to properly finished on the grill, you aren't really bbq'ing.

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