Learn how to combine spices to create a meal that makes you look like a kitchen rock star, how to make homemade poultry seasoning that also works well with potatoes, and how to roast a whole chicken.
If you have a well-stocked spice cabinet and know which herbs and spices go together, you will hardly ever need a recipe. In this post, I am going to show you how to combine spices to create a meal that makes you look like a kitchen rock star. In the end, I will give you my recipe for homemade poultry seasoning that also works well with potatoes and show you how to roast a whole chicken.
The main components to many Asian dishes are ginger, garlic, and soy sauce. You can build on that basic profile by using some Chinese Five Spice, but be careful with it. Very little goes a long way. You can even brighten up a dish with some orange peel, either fresh or dried. To make a marinade, you could add some hoisin or oyster sauce and some rice wine vinegar to soy sauce and some spices. Play with your ratios by adding a little spice at a time to get the flavor you are looking for.
Indian flavors can be intimidating since they are so bold. When using Indian flavors like curry and turmeric, I highly recommend adding small amounts at a time and tasting it before adding more. A nice companion to Indian spices is coconut milk or half and half to make the flavors less assertive. You could also add a little curry powder and grapes to your chicken salad to brighten it up.
Mexican flavors are one of my staples. I love the brightness of cumin, the smokiness of chipotle, and I could eat fresh cilantro on almost anything. They’re also pretty easy to work with. I like to make Mexican-inspired marinades with lime juice, olive oil, garlic, cumin or chipotle, oregano, and some salt and pepper. Toss a few pieces of chicken in the marinade and dinner is done. Chicken, fish, pork, and even beef go well with Mexican spices.
I find that Italian spices are the easiest to work with. In general, they aren’t all that assertive and if you add a little too much, it usually won’t ruin your dish. They also go well on just about everything like chicken, pork, seafood, vegetables, and sauces.
That brings me to my homemade poultry seasoning which is mostly Italian spices. It also tastes great on roasted potatoes.
- 2 tsp thyme
- 2 tsp rosemary
- 2 tsp oregano
- 1 tsp Italian seasoning
- ½ tsp garlic powder
- ½ tsp marjoram
- ½ tsp sage
- salt and pepper to taste
- olive oil
- 1-2 lemons
- 1 yellow onion
- white wine (optional)
- In a bowl, combine your spice mixture (thyme, rosemary, oregano, Italian seasoning, garlic powder, marjoram, and sage) and set it aside.
- Drizzle some olive oil on the chicken and rub it over the entire surface, season with salt and pepper.
- Then drizzle the juice of a half a lemon over the top of the chicken.
- Cover the chicken with about half of your spice mixture (more or less depending on your preference).
- Stuff the cavity with half of an onion cut in quarters and one lemon cut in half.
- In the bottom of the roasting pan, add a cup of white wine and a cup of water, put any remaining onion and lemon in the roasting pan.
- Cook at 400ºF for 30 minutes.
- Turn the oven down to 350 and cook until the chicken reaches an internal 175ºF.
Now that you know which spices go well with chicken, I hope you have fun experimenting with different flavor profiles that you may not have used before. At the very least, now you know how to roast the perfect chicken.
We hope you love experimenting with these spice combinations from SoFabFood Contributor, Regan from The Anti June Cleaver, as much as we do. If you love this recipe and helpful spice advice, be sure to subscribe to our newsletter so you never miss another post and recipe like this. For daily recipe inspiration, like us on Facebook, follow us on Pinterest, and stop by our Google+ Community to see all of the amazing recipes our community members are sharing. Enjoy!
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