Of complex recipes, crossing cooking worlds, and carbs: chicken with roasted shallots

There MUST be at least one thing in that title that catches your attention. I hope more than that. And I promise that I will link them all together, although I make no claims to doing so without digressions.
It has been said, not without reason, that Annalena favors complex dishes. While I try to present simpler items here on this blog, the fact is, cooking takes time, and sometimes it takes a fair piece of work. Not everything, but some things. I can tell you until I am pink in the face that as you cook and get more proficient at what you're doing, it takes less time, but the fact, is COOKING TAKES TIME. If you are not inclined, as I am, to spend time in the kitchen on your off hours, you are going to look for simpler things to do. And I have one for you, and it comes from a pastry chef. Onto the second link.
David Lebovitz writes one of my favorite blogs, and he writes some of my favorite cookbooks. I recommend them all. He is a fabulous pastry chef. "Pastry" as they call it in the cooking world, includes baking, ice cream making, anything that is not "savory." I know few authors who have the art of presentation down as well as he does. His recipes are so clear, and so simple (to the extent they can be), that at least to this cook, they are a joy.
In the cooking world, however, there is a split: with almost no exceptions, savory chefs do not do pastry, and pastry chefs do not do savory. Patty Jackson is the one person I know who has pulled this off completely, and her dishes, from both ends of the menu, are fabulous. In fact, there are times I think that her savories are better, even though she is a trained pastry chef. Anita Lo has pulled it off too, to some extent. She has 3-4 pastry dishes that she keeps on her menu all the time. They are wonderful, but if your palate craves the new with each dessert, well...
So when a pastry chef presents a savory dish, I pay attention. I pay special attention when it is David Lebovitz. And I'm glad I did. You will be too. The amount of work in this dish is minimal. I think it took me six minutes to put it together. If you are new to chopping and mincing (food, not walking), it may take a little longer, but double the time then: 12 minutes of preparation. You can handle that. It takes more time to brew coffee. Then you put the thing in the oven for 40 minutes. So, if you step into the kitchen, you can have dinner for six people out in an hour. Doubt me? Go ahead and do this one.
Now, to the carbs: this is a minimalist dish. It's perfect for those of you whom Annalena is suspcious of, for not eating carbs. I guess one could argue about the sugar in the shallots, but then again, one could argue about anything, as Annalena so frequently does.

Ok, so let's start to cook. You need a cut up chicken, or the equivalent. For Annalena, that was either four whole chicken breasts, which I boned, or something like 8 chicken legs, whole. Whatever floats your boats. David's original recipe called for the cut up chicken. In my experience, you get uneven cooking when you mix types, so I stick to one type. Your call. You also need soy sauce, olive oil, red wine vinegar, salt, pepper and four shallots.

Now, David clearly says if you don't have shallots, AND YOU SHOULD, you could substitute onions. RIGHT ON MR LEBOVITZ. Annalena is never without a shallot or two. But if you don't have them, sigh.. alright. Do you have a leek? Double sigh. In any event, mince your shallot or oniony equivalent, while you are preheating an oven to 425. In all, you want about 3/4 to a cup of chopped shallot/onion/leek. It took me 3 minutes to do this.

Get a big roasting pan. One big enough to hold all the chicken in one layer. A 9x13 suited me just fine. Put 3 tablespoons of olive oil, 3 tablespoons of red wine vinegar, a tablespoon of soy sauce and the shallots in this, and mix them up together. Now, add your chicken pieces, and turn them in the mix until they are good and coated. Sprinkle on some salt and pepper.

Was that hard? Hmmmm? Turn the pieces so that the skin side faces up, get the pan in the oven and bake for 20 minutes. During this 20 minutes, your home is going to start smelling wonderful, as the vinegar vaporizes and the onions roast. It is truly a wonderful smelling dish.

After 20, turn the pieces and roast for another 20 minutes.

You're done. David advocates adding a big handful of chopped parsley, and I dissent from this. If you want, though, please feel free.

If you are of the carb lovers school, you will of course have noted that there is plenty of time to make a pot of rice, or pasta, or couscous or something. You will want that, espcially if you use chicken breasts, because there is a fair amount of liquid at the end. It's good. You should taste it.

I am thinking through variations of this . I suppose that any vinegar would work. Indeed, in the closest dish I can think of to this one, a French stew of vinegared chicken, I use white wine vinegar. Balsamic surely sounds good if you like the sweeter end of things. I think you might substitute the soy sauce with something like Worsteshire (I spelled that wrong), or Asian fish sauce, or any of other salty condiments you have. In fact, I'm thinking that ketchup might work as well.

This recipe is so easy and so much fun, and so good, that if this were a class, and Annalena were in the front of the room with a pointer, she would assign this as homework. She would require you to make the recipe as written, and then do a variation and report on it.

In fact, I shall ask you to treat it as such. Get to work.