Spiced Ginger Chicken

I decided to invent a Thai curry-style marinade for baked chicken that I was planning to have with some kimchi and rice.  It's somewhere between an Indian curry and satay, but not exactly either, so I just called it "spiced".  Not spicy.  We don't do spicy here.  And I didn't want to call it "seasoned", because that could mean anything from only salt to a wide variety of cuisines.  We're going to go with this and hope it isn't too confusing.

I defrosted the rest of the chicken pieces in the freezer for this.  One of the thighs will end up in the freezer for a day I need a reheat-able meal.  There's still a whole bird in there, but I'm making serious progress.  It has been unbelievably hard to resist buying meat when I see a good sale, but it's a month until I defrost the freezer.  Starting the corned beef for next week was also very helpful, even though half of it will get sliced and refrozen.

Don't be daunted by the long list of ingredients.  It's almost all spices.  Once the marinade is made, the rest is remarkably easy.  And while I put in a tiny amount of ground fennel seed, I'm not putting it in the ingredients.  It got a bit dominant.

*1/2 C finely diced onion
*2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp grated ginger
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp kosher salt
*1 stalk lemongrasss, white part only, finely chopped, or 1 tsp lemongrass powder
1/2 tsp ground coriander seed
3 Tb vegetable oil
*1 Tb lime juice
8 pieces chicken (or 4 leg quarters)

1.  Start early in the day or the night before.  In a large bowl, whisk together everything except the chicken into a chunky marinade.  Add chicken pieces and turn to coat all sides.  Cover and refrigerate 6-8 hours or overnight.

2.  Preheat oven to 350º.  Arrange chicken pieces in a 9x13 baking dish and top with any remaining marinade.

3.  Bake until internal temperature of the thickest piece reaches 165º, roughly 45 minutes to an hour.

Difficulty rating  π