This is very similar to my lavender and brandy chicken (and everyone else's baked chicken) so it's not particularly groundbreaking, but it's good stuff.
Now for drinking, I don't like whiskey or bourbon, or really any dark liquor that much, except for spiced rum. I've never acquired the taste, and that's probably for the best. But in small amounts, I think the nutty spicy flavor of these liquors go really well in meat dishes.
Not everyone is into parsnips. Even though they look like big white carrots, they taste very, very different. Once you stop expecting them to taste as sweet as carrots though, you'll probably like them, especially if you like other root vegetables. In this recipe, I didn't bother writing it in the ingredients, but I added a few leftover baby carrot sticks I had in the fridge too.
Ingredients:
-4 large chicken thighs for two people, or 4 leg quarters for four people
-2 tablespoons melted butter, or good olive oil, or one of each.
-A heaping teaspoon each of thyme, rosemary and marjoram, salt, and pepper. Double these amounts if you're using chicken leg quarters instead of thighs. Now I happened to have these herbs growing still out back, so if you have fresh, use them, and you can just kind of throw as many sprigs as you want in the bottom of the pan before you put everything in, without actually pulling the leaves off and chopping them up.
-2 to 4 parsnips, sliced in half and chopped into even-ish 3 inch pieces (however many pieces you can squeeze into the baking pan with the chicken)
-About 2-3 ounces of good Kentucky Bourbon (you can just get one of those cute little bottles from the convenience store if you don't have any at home)
Coat the chicken and parsnip chunks with the butter or oil, then sprinkle all over with the spices. Bake in a pan in a 425 degree oven for 30 minutes, until you see some browning on the tops of the chicken thighs.
After 30 minutes, sprinkle the bourbon over the top of everything, then put it back in the oven on 350 for another 20-30 minutes. I do 30 minutes because when you're cooking dark meat only, you don't have to worry about the chicken drying out, it will just fall off the bone easier and the parsnips will be nice and soft. For leg quarters, add an extra 15 minutes.
Serve with cranberry sauce, or lingonberry preserves (if you have an Ikea near you, you can get some there.) It's extra special if you have more bourbon to throw some of it in the cranberry sauce when you're cooking it.
