Roast chicken with a tomato and chive salad
Ingredients
Serves 3-5
- 1 whole chicken (5kg)
- 1 teaspoon coriander seeds
- 1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
- 1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds
- 2 cloves garlic, peeled
- 1 1/2 tablespoon rapeseed oil
- Zest 1/2 lemon
For the cherry tomato salad:
- 200g cherry tomatoes, washed, and cut into eighths
- 1 handful chives, chopped into rounds with a sharp knife
- 1 shallot, peeled and diced
- 2 capfuls of rapeseed oil
- 2 capfuls of white wine vinegar
- Pinch of Maldon Sea Salt
- Good grind of black pepper
Timings
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 1 hour 20 minutes
Total time: 1 hour 30 minutes plus 10 minutes resting time
Roast chicken with a tomato and chive salad
Think out of the box when it comes to a roast chicken. What flavours can you try? Is it for a traditional Sunday lunch or as an easy-throw-in-the-oven meal with a salad and some new potatoes? This is the latter and makes a delicious sauce.
Method
Preheat oven to 180/350/gas 4.
First make the marinade by dry roasting the seeds in a pan. Heat the pan over a high heat (without oil) and add the seeds. Dry-roast for 2-3 minutes until they start to smoke and release their flavours. Take the pan off the heat and place the seeds in a pestle and mortar. Grind the seeds up until you get a fine paste.
Add the garlic, oil and lemon zest to the pestle and mortar and mix together well.
Place the chicken in a roasting tray and using your hands to massage it in all over including between the legs breast and wings and breast. Leave to the side for 20 minutes to let it infuse.
When you are ready, season the chicken with salt and pepper and place in a roasting tray. Cook in the oven for 40 minutes. After 40 minutes, take out the chicken and using two wooden spoons or spatulas carefully turn it upside down so that the breast is on the bottom of the roasting tray. Cook for a further 40 minutes.
Take out the chicken, and very carefully turn it back the right way around so that the breast is facing upwards. You can tell whether it is cooked by making a cut between the leg and the breast. If the meat is cooked and the juices are clear there then the chicken is ready. If you push down on the leg with the back of a fork it should break away from the main bird. If it is still raw or the juices are red then pop it back in the oven for 5-10 minutes.
Rest the chicken on the side for 10 minutes before serving.
While the chicken is cooking, make your salad. Put all the ingredients into a bowl and mix. Leave for 30 minutes to let the flavours infuse.
DOWNLOAD OR PRINT RECIPE HERE.
The beauty of roasting a chicken is that you can cook once and eat three times. Let me explain. 1. roast chicken. 2. Left-overs shredded into a sauce or added to a salad. 3 Bones added to a soup for added nutrition. If you have a chicken carcass but don’t want to use it straight away you can pop it in a bag in the freezer and pull it out when you are next making a soup.”
No Comments