The Sunday Roaster: Chicken with Lemon & Oregano

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Chicken with Lemon & Oregano

It's easy to feel that going back to chicken is a bit of a cop-out come Sunday lunch, but the thing with chicken is it's just so versatile and tasty. I think every time I do it I'm at a bit of a loss as to how to do it, but then pretty much every time it comes out great anyway - don't know why I bother worrying really!

I long ago gave up buying cheap chicken, waste of time that stuff really even without worrying about the conditions that most birds are raised in. Flavour is enough of an argument to get me to switch, but these days I do try and be a bit more vigilant in other chicken products that I pick-up. That's what the 'Chicken Out' campaign has taught me if nothing else, that the buggers will try and stick cheap, nasty, exploitative food in anything given half a chance. That tasty looking chicken madras, a quick chicken bap down town for lunch, even those biscuits you've been buying for years. Turns out they put battery reared food in lots of stuff. Anyhow, enough carping on about that. Back to the food.

This recipe was inspired by the fact that I had most of a lemon knocking about in the back of fridge looking to be finished up, and some left over new potatoes that weren't quite as fresh as they could have been - sometimes the smallest things can inspire good cooking. The lemon went inside the chicken cut into about eight pieces along with a couple of garlic cloves, and the potatoes were scattered around the bird along with a large cut up onion. Then the whole thing was liberally seasoned scattered with oregano and then finally some olive oil. Then into the oven for the usual sort of time whilst we went down the pub.

The chicken before going in the oven

The idea with this style of cooking, something I've been doing for many years now although usually with lamb, is that the juices from the meat and the oil will combine and the potatoes will get covered in all this extra flavour but also start to caramelise and crisp up a bit. It works a treat and so long as your roasting time is not too long your vegetables will get that extra depth and sweetness to them. The onions this time around were particularly wonderful, somehow tart and sweet, soft and chewy, all at the same time.

Served this with broad beans - our first crop from the mini-allotment at the end of the garden - together with some pancetta that we had in the fridge from B's village back home in Italy. The beans were very quickly boiled whilst I rendered off the fat from the pancetta. Most of the fat was put aside and then the beans and bacon (what a classic combination that is) just tossed together - no seasoning at all, didn't need it.

The chicken once roasted

I thought this need a little extra something so made some focaccia bread to go with it. Turns out the flour I used was brown, which I wasn't expecting (it was local flour from down the road we hadn't tried before) so instead of the usual rosemary focaccia I make I turned this into fennel focaccia instead, and it turned out pretty good and a good foil for the strong flavours of the bird.

Fennel Focaccia

All in all a damn good feed, and what with some untypical English Sunday Summer Sunshine (!) added some much needed sanity into what has lately been a bit of a demanding life.