I’ve taken a liking to them lately. They’re cheap, but tasty. I won’t de-bone them though. I like 'em cooked whole.
Any ideas that aren’t too complicated or require trips to every international market in town?
I do chicken under a brick with the chicken leg quarters. I bone them so this might not work all that well with the bones in. Sprinkle the chicken with salt and pepper. Put the legs skin side down in a hot skillet with a tablespoon of oil in it. Put a heavy pan on top of the legs cook for 10 minutes on medium high. After 10 minute flip the legs over and cook without the heavy pan on for another 3 or 4 minutes. This makes for some really nice crispy skin and juicy chicken.
This is from “The art of simple food” by Alice Waters.
I love leg quarters, too: cheap and yummy. I don’t use recipes so much as techniques, and this is one I learned from my mom. Easy, and extremely adaptable:
Pat the chicken dry, then dredge lightly in flour - you aren’t making fried chicken, just introducing a starch to thicken the resulting sauce. Season with anything you care to use.
Pan-fry the chicken in a little bit of olive oil, starting skin-side down in a pan. Don’t overcrowd the pan. Brown both sides, then add liquids to the pan. Cover and let simmer until the chicken is done. I usually use a meat thermometer. If the sauce is very liquidy, remove the chicken and reduce the liquid until thickened to your preference.
For liquid, I use a primary liquid to add the bulk of the moisture, and then something strong to add additional flavor.
As primary liquid I generally use white wine or chicken stock, as secondary I use lemon juice or capers/caper juice. Add enough primary to come 1/3 to 1/2 way up the chicken - it all depends on the size of your pan and quantity of chicken, though.
The most unusual combination of flavors I’ve used is beef stock and Frank’s Red-Hot (buffalo sauce). I ended up with something like a high-class take on buffalo wings that went amazingly well with rosemary potatos.
One good cut with a knife and you’ve got a leg and a thigh; it’s real easy once you find the notch.
But I like them whole, as well.
Here’s an easy one: Grill them about 10-15 minutes per side (indirect heat, lid on), then slather on some BBQ sauce and finish off for maybe a minute per side, depending on how hot your grill is. It’s very important not to sauce them until the end.
Or cram them into a crock pot (that sounds appetizing!), dump some BBQ sauce on them, and off you go.
I salt, garlic powder, and pepper them (heavily) then I put them on a pan with a full stick of butter. Put the pan, the butter and the qtrs in the oven - 400 degrees until they’re done. Be sure to baste now and again.
Any recipe that requires a full stick of butter has got to be good. 
What’s even better is when it’s done, it has bits of browned butter in the pan that have combined with, well, the fat I guess and it makes the best tasting butter fat crumbles. I eat that stuff right off the pan with a spatula. But don’t tell anyone.
This works for any chicken parts, bone in, boneless, with or without skin.
Season breadcrumbs and/or flour with a lot of poultry seasoning and seasoned salt and garlic powder. Melt some butter, enough to generously coat all the chicken. Dip chicken parts in butter, and then in the breadcrumbs or flour. Bake at 375 until done, and no, I don’t know when it’s done until I test it. This is basically oven “fried” chicken, only with more seasoning and less fat. I suppose olive oil could be used, but I think that butter tastes much better in this dish.
I like to buy jars of various “stir-fry” sauces at the market. Nowadays, these can come in many regional flavors: Chinese, Indian, Thai, Malaysian, etc.
I pull the skin off of leg quarters or thighs, put them in a casserole, cover them with the bottled sauce and seal the casserole with foil. Optional: Toss in large chunks of veg like onion wedges, whole carrots, etc. Braise the casserole chicken for an hour, and serve with rice. It’s halfway between a stew and an Asian stir-fry. Bonus points if you have a pressure cooker, as you can toss together this dinner in about twenty minutes.
Lemme dig around in my brain a minute and find Granny’s Barbeque Chicken recipe…
…ah, here we are: Effie Jean’s Barbeque Chicken
Chicken pieces (whatever you like and as many as will fit in a 9x13 Pyrex dish)
1 stick Butter
1/2 cup Ketchup
3 tbsp Mustard
3 tbsp Worchestershire sauce
1/4 cup Cider vinegar
1/4 cup water
Pepper
I usually don’t measure any of this, I just do a squirt of this and a glug of that. Put the chicken parts in the Pyrex dish. Mix all the other ingredients in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Pour over chicken and place in a 350 degree oven for about an hour and a half. Depending on the thickness of your chicken pieces it may take more or less time. You can adjust any of the ingredients to suit your tastes.
She also uses this sauce for grilling. It’s not a thick sauce, but it’s very flavorful.
I haven’t made it in a while, but I used to like to prepare tandoori chicken, typically using leg quarters that I’d separated into drumsticks and thighs. I know you said you didn’t want recipes that “require trips to every international market in town” but the exotic spices needed are minimal. Here, for instance is a Food Network recipe from Emeril Lagasse. The only spice there that might require a special trip is the garam masala, and even that might be available in a supermarket.
Personally, though, I used to make it from a dry spice mix made by Sharwood. Following the recipe on the back of the package, I’d mix the spice mix with yogurt and vinegar to make a marinade. (I may be misremembering the ingredients but in any case it was simple.) I’d marinate the skinned legs overnight and then either broil them or roast them. Very tasty and, considering that the chicken was skinned, relatively healthy.
Chicken Curry!
Fry the chicken pieces in a bit of oil (use whatever oil or butter you like) until light brown. Take them out of the pan.
Add a little more oil if needed. Put some curry mixture in the pan. I use at least 3 of: a small chopped onion, a few small chillis or chilli paste, tumeric, garlic, curry leaves and cumin seeds, but curries are great for experimenting, so go ahead and add whatever you think will work. I think Cardamom works very well with chicken. Or be lazy and just use some store-bought curry paste.
Fry the mixture until the garlic is a little browned.
Put the chicken pieces back in the pan. Add enough coconut cream to the herbs to just about cover the chicken (over here, you can get Santen: “bricks” of coconut flesh, which I use, chopped and with some water, but canned cream will work just as well). Boil slowly until the chicken is cooked.
Eat with rice. Add some fresh cilantro if you like it.
Too late: about the “exotic” spices: Santen will keep forever, and the spices I mentioned will keep for at least a couple of months if bought dried (as for the cilantro: it’s no good if it’s not fresh. But it’s optional).
I just go to my local asian supermarket every couple of weeks and get a bunch of the dried herbs I figure I need. It helps that they’re also the cheapest store I have found for herbs of any kind: 60 grams of oragano for 75 cents in the Asian store , vs 10 grams for 1 euro at the regular supermarket. And cilantro is available fresh from just about any store in my neighborhood.
Chicken with red wine, cinnamon and garlic. Kinda long, so under the spoiler.
Chicken Corfu, adapted from Gourmet Magazine, Jan 2003
4 leg-thigh combo chicken parts
1 head of garlic, peeled
2 tesp ground cinnamon
1 tesp salt
1-2 tesp ground black pepper
Olive oil to heavily coat the bottom of the frying pan
1 Tbl tomato paste
2 Tbl balsamic vinegar
2 medium onions, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced crosswise (make little rainbows)
2 cups dry red wine
2 cups broth (the better the broth, the better the resulting sauce. If you add a few spoons of demi-glace it will be much better)
pasta or rice
Pat chicken dry. Cut eight garlic cloves into thin slices, perhaps 3 slices to the clove. Leave 5-6 cloves whole and slice remaining garlic as thin as you can. Make slits all over the chicken with a sharp parking knife and insert a thicker garlic slice into each slit. Stir together cinnamon, salt and pepper, then sprinkle all over chicken.
Heat oil in a deep 12 inch heavy skillet over moderately high heat until hot but not smoking, then brown chicken on all sides, about 10 minutes. Transfer chicken with tongs to large plate. Meanwhile stir together tomato paste and vinegar.
There are two things you can do with the very thin garlic slices. You can heat some more oil in the pan. While it is heating, shake the garlic slices in a baggie with a second batch of salt, cinnamon and pepper. Then briefly deep-fry the seasoned garlic until golden brown. Carefully remove garlic chips from oil, and place on paper towels to drain. The second thing to do is to add them after the pan after sautéing the onions.
Add onions to the skillet and sauté, stirring occasionally, until golden, about 10 minutes. Stir in tomato-vinegar mixture and simmer 1 minute. Stir in wine, broth, garlic and simmer uncovered for about 5 minutes. Return chicken, skin sides up to the pan and simmer, covered, for about 30 minutes or until very tender.
Transfer chicken with tongs to large plate and cover with foil to keep warm. (Start water for pasta or rice.) Boil sauce, uncovered, stirring occasionally until reduced to about 2 ½ cups, about 20 minutes. When pasta is almost done, add to pan and simmer for a few minutes (this will make the pasta somewhat purple, if it bothers you, skip this step). Put pasta and sauce on plates, top with chicken and eat! (Or put rice on plates, top with chicken and pour sauce over all, eat!)
Thanks for all the great ideas everyone! I left out some leg quarters this morning to defrost. Looks like chicken for dinner tonight.
I’m big on lazy. I have some Thai green curry, I wonder if that work? Hmm, why not?