Roasted Chicken Breast and Vegetables

Following in my usual habit of making simple chicken for both meals and leftovers, I decided to try roasting chicken breasts in a pan directly on top of vegetables instead of using a roasting rack. This makes a simple one-pan dish, and a lot of flavor soaked into the veggies. The chicken itself probably needs a marinade for additional flavor, though the dish itself does result in some sauce (more like a broth — maybe trying to thicken it up into a sauce after cooking would be good). The combination of black pepper, jalapeno seeds, and fennel turned out to be a perfect fit to the chicken and the vegetables I used.

Ingredients
2 bone-in skin-on chicken breasts
1 large carrot, sliced
1 large celery stalk, sliced
1/4 head of cauliflower, sliced
1/2 red onion, diced coarsely
olive oil, soy sauce, red wine, salt, ground black pepper, ground fennel seeds, ground jalapeno seeds/pith

Directions
lay the vegetables in the bottom of an 11×7 baking dish; vegetables should make about one layer on bottom of pan. toss with olive oil and salt. add some soy sauce and wine until about half covered. sprinkle generously with a coarsely-ground mix of the pepper, jalapeno seeds, and fennel. lay the chicken on top, meat up. sprinkle the chicken generously with the remaining spice mix. bake in the oven at 400 until done, around 30-40 min depending on size.
Verdict
the vegetables were nicely roasted, dark and flavorful from the chicken, wine, and spices. The chicken skin was nicely crusted, though of course no particular flavor soaked into the meat. I’d do this again except marinating the chicken first. I’d probably also drop the soy sauce and stick with wine or vinegar, and add garlic (whole or halved cloves). Parsnips or sweet potatoes would be good. A more asian combination of flavors would probably be good too.