Chicken Cuts For Traybake

Our answer

Nigella's Chicken Traybake With Bitter Orange And Fennel (from SIMPLY NIGELLA) bakes skin-on and bone-in chicken thighs on a bed of sliced fennel, which softens and sweetens in the oven. The zest and juice of bitter Seville oranges are used in a marinade to flavour and tenderize the chicken.

Chicken thighs have a good flavour and rosting on the bone and with the skin on helps to ensure that the chicken remains moist during cooking. Chicken breast meat can tend to dry out quickly in the oven and we would avoid using skinless and boneless breast fillets as they will cook too quickly for the fennel to soften properly. It may be possible to use chicken supremes, which are breasts that still have the peg bone (the upper part of the wing) attached, but they should have their skin on. These tend to stay more moist than chicken breast fillets. Chicken supremes can vary in size so the cooking time can vary and if the chicken supremes are cooked through but the fennel is still slightly crunchy then transfer the chicken to a plate and tent with foil then return the pan to the oven so that the fennel can finish cooking. However our preference would still be to use chicken thighs, or a combination of thighs and drumsticks.