Roasted Chicken Legs With Cranberry Butter Recipe

The sweet, slightly tart butter in this recipe crisps up the chicken skin and moistens the meat at the same time. You start by making a compound butter: mashing cranberries, honey, and orange zest into room temperature butter. You can make the butter up to a week ahead of time. Shape it into a log on a piece of wax paper, roll it up, and twist the ends to store it. The butter will solidify, so you can cut off neat, round slices that are easy to tuck under the chicken skin. After you roast the chicken, the pan drippings make a tasty sauce; serve it with bread, rice or couscous, for sopping up all those delicious juices.