This is one of my favourite things to make when I want a roast, but can’t be bothered with all of the usual faff that comes with making a Sunday lunch. We don’t eat a lot of meat at home for various reasons, but a roast chicken is one of those comforting meals that also stretches to a few days of leftovers, and worth the occasional treat.
The recipe is super simple, and is based on one from the Simply Nigella cookbook. The deep red potatoes, orange carrots, green leeks and yellow lemons look amazing together in the tray when they go in, but all come out deeply caramelised at the end. Everything is cooked in one tray, and it’s great if you’re giving #compleating a go as you don’t peel any of the veg, either.
Ingredients:
- 1kg of red potatoes
- 1 medium chicken (free range or organic)
- 2 large leeks
- 3 carrots
- 2 lemons, unwaxed
- 1 bulb of garlic
- A handful of fresh rosemary
- A handful of fresh thyme
- A few glugs of olive oil
- Salt & pepper to season
Recipe:
- Preheat the oven to 220c. Take the largest oven tray you have and pour in a generous slug of olive oil.
- Finely chop the leaves from a few sprigs of rosemary and add to the oven tray, along with a handful of fresh thyme leaves, and all of the cloves from the bulb of garlic, unpeeled.
- Chop the carrots, red potatoes and leeks into 1.5cm chunks and add to the pan. Give everything a good mix to get it all coated with oil and herbs.
- Untruss the chicken and make a space in the middle of the veg to place it in. Drizzle with olive oil and season generously with salt and pepper.
- Chop the lemons into quarters and add to the pan (remove as many pips as you easily can to prevent them falling out in the tray).
- Loosely cover with foil and cook for 30 mins. Remove the foil, and cook for another 30mins.
- Check that the chicken is cooked (the juices run clear) and remove it from the tray, pouring out the juices into the pan as you do. Return the veg to the oven for 10 more minutes while the chicken rests.
Once the chicken has been carved, remove the lemon wedges from the pan and serve the veg as is, letting people to take their own portions (you can eat the garlic cloves as they are as they will have turned to a lovely, caramelised mush).
You can also use any leftover chicken meat (and the carcass) to make an asian-inspired chicken soup, using vegetable stock, garlic, ginger, miso paste, and some more fresh herbs.
Note: This is a sponsored post, in collaboration with Love Food Hate Waste.
