Spanish-Style Cast Iron Baked Chicken Legs

As seen on Instagram, Karl asked me to write this out. He probably didn’t need this much help, but I’m putting it here anyways so everyone can enjoy it! I started to put it in a Gist (I’m a nerd), but then I remembered I have a blog. This was yummy, and VERY easy to make.

Ingredients:

• 6-8 chicken legs
• 1 Medium White Onion
• 1 Small/Medium Red Onion
• 2-3 good-sized cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 Green Bell Pepper
• Olive Oil
• Soy Sauce
• Worcestershire Sauce
• Chili Powder
• Paprika
• Cumin
• Herbes de Provence – oregano will work if that’s all you have
• Salt & Pepper, or even better, Montreal Steak Seasoning (you should have this at your house anyways)
• Your Favorite Hot Sauce. For this purpose I chose Juan Food’s Pain Is Good Habenero-Garlic Sauce, possibly my favorite hot sauce in the whole world (and that’s saying something considering I have a shelf in the fridge dedicated to hot sauces). If you wanted it to be even spicier it would be really tasty adding any hot pepper from a Cheyenne all the way to a Ghost Pepper, just chop it up and add it into the pan.

Make it:

• In a dish that will fit the all of chicken legs (eventually), combine 1/4 – 1/3 cups of olive oil, a few liberal dashes of soy sauce, hot sauce, and Worcestershire Sauce, and the minced garlic and mix it all up. Put the chicken legs in. Add all the spices on top of the chicken, turning the chicken to make sure it is coated on all sides. Those spices are: chili powder, paprika, cumin, Herbes de Provence, and Montreal Steak Seasoning. Be liberal with the spices, the chicken legs should be coated! If I had to tell you how much I’d say about a teaspoon of each +/- half a tablespoon. Just do whatever you want. Let this marinate for at least 15 minutes in the fridge.
• While that’s marinating, preheat your oven to 350º and coarsely chop the bell pepper and onions up (1″ – 1.5″ rough squares will be fine) and add to a cast iron pan with a little bit of olive oil in the bottom.
• When the oven is ready, and the chicken is marinated, add the chicken to the cast iron, with ALL the marinade and stick in the oven for 40-45 minutes.
• About every 15 minutes, turn the chicken legs over and baste with the juices from the bottom of the pan. If there are no juices, I told you something wrong or you need to add more olive oil.
• When the chicken is almost done, turn the oven’s broiler on high, and broil the chicken legs for 5-10 minutes or until they have a nice crispy (slight) burn to the skins.
• Take everything out of the oven and let cool for a few minutes.

Eat it:

Service with Spanish Rice and Beans (if you’re lazy just buy those cuban beans at Trader Joes).

Put it in your mouth, chew, and swallow. Repeat.

Did you like it? Does it taste like crap? Let me know in the comments below!