Chicken in Foil Baked with Spices

Name: Chicken in Foil: Easy Oven-Baked Drumsticks with Wine and Garlic
Prep time: 2 h
Cook time: 1 h
Total time: 3 h
Cuisine: European
Ingredients: Chicken drumsticks 2; Dry white wine 0.5 cup (100 ml); Lemon 1 tbsp juice; Garlic 3-4 cloves; Olive oil 1 tbsp; Dried herbs (basil, dill, parsley), salt, black pepper to taste

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3 h

Many people think cooking chicken is easy. Chicken in foil (drumsticks, legs, or a whole bird) is as easy as it gets. Given how fast chicken cooks, there is probably some truth to that claim.

Baking chicken in foil is perhaps one of the simplest ways to cook it.

Aluminum food foil, or as people say, metal “paper,” is a very thin and soft sheet of metal. Interestingly, a long time ago the stress in the word for foil fell on the first syllable, so the word we are used to sounded quite unfamiliar.

Foil is perfect for cooking buzhenina, a baked pork ham, which is probably the best-known dish baked in foil. Since foods cook quickly in foil, they are usually marinated a little beforehand. But baking in foil has its quirks. For example, steam and moisture build up inside the nearly airtight package, so the food steams rather than bakes. That is why the foil is pierced before heating to let steam escape, or cut open shortly before the end of cooking so the excess moisture evaporates and the dish can brown a little.

Chicken in foil, or its parts, is an easy dish that comes together quite fast. A short marinade, then baking the chicken in foil.

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Ingredients

2 servings

Chicken drumsticks 2
Dry white wine 0.5 cup (100 ml)
Lemon 1 tbsp juice
Garlic 3-4 cloves
Olive oil 1 tbsp
Dried herbs (basil, dill, parsley), salt, black pepper to taste

Step-by-step recipe

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Preparing and marinating

Prepare the drumsticks: clean and rinse them. Pierce the meat through with a sharp knife in the thickest places. Season with salt and pepper and sprinkle with dried aromatic herbs. Push half a garlic clove into each cut.
Marinate: put the drumsticks in a plastic container and pour over a mixture of half a cup of dry white wine (100 ml) and 1 tbsp of lemon juice.
Refrigerate to marinate for 2 hours. That is enough time. But if you think it necessary, you can marinate the chicken longer.

Wrapping the chicken in foil

Take the drumsticks out of the marinade and pat them dry with paper towels. Brush the meat with a little olive oil or, though I don’t approve of it, mayonnaise.
Prepare 4 square pieces of food foil, two pieces for each drumstick. Wrap the chicken tightly in foil, making sure the package does not come undone. Then wrap it in one more layer of foil.
The eternal question: which side of the foil should face the food, matte or shiny? The theory that shiny foil holds and reflects heat is not convincing. I have never heard a sensible argument. So I do whatever is convenient. With chicken, I always use whichever side comes up.

Baking

Preheat the oven to 220-230°C. Since the steam inside the package cooks the chicken, poke a hole in each foil package with the tip of a knife. Put the packages in a baking tray or a ceramic baking dish: the liquid that leaks through the hole tends to burn and give off a burnt smell.
Bake the chicken in foil for 40 mins to 1 hour. Since the packages go into the oven relatively cold, a lot of the time is spent just heating the food.
Once a thin stream of steam comes out of the hole in the foil, the chicken has started cooking. After that, 20 minutes is enough until it is done. The juice from the hole in cooked chicken runs clear, with no pink.
If you want the chicken to brown, cut open the foil at this point, carefully, as hot steam comes out of the package, and bake the drumsticks until golden. For this you can briefly raise the oven temperature to 240-250°C and bake the chicken, keeping an eye on it.

Serving

Chicken in foil is served hot, and you don’t even have to unwrap the foil. Or take the drumsticks out of the foil and put them on a plate with a side dish, if you like. Baked potatoes and beet salad go very well with it.

Calories and macros

375 kcal

Serving ≈ 150 g

Protein23 g25% of kcal
Fat29 g71% of kcal
Carbs4 g5% of kcal

100 g244 kcalProtein 14.8 gFat 19 gCarbs 2.7 g

Calculated from the recipe ingredients, excluding salt and spices. Data: USDA and Matvaretabellen.

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