“If you could only eat one thing for the rest of your life, what would it be?”
A random but interesting question my wife likes to entertain me with every now and then. After substantial time is spent debating with myself, I pretty much always (once in a while a perfectly cooked steak can gain top spot) resort to an answer of roast chicken. I think it stems from childhood, sitting around the table with my family; my dad, my brother and myself arguing over the two wings (my mum was never a big fan and sorry dad, but thanks for always giving in), served with roast potatoes, veg and although I may pretend to be above it now (but secretly still love it), ultra thick Bisto gravy. It was the pinnacle of comfort food then and for me it still is. So here’s my crack at the ultimate roast chicken.
Ingredients
Free range chicken 1.3kg
Two 400g tins of butter beans
2 or 3 shallots finely sliced
Few sprigs of fresh rosemary
Small bunch of flat leaf parsley finely chopped
100ml or so of white wine
One garlic bulb (2 cloves removed and finely chopped, the rest separated into cloves with skins on)
Vegetable/Sunflower oil
Couple of knobs of butter
I also had some mushrooms lying around and surprise, surprise thought some of my home cured bacon might make the beans even tastier, so I cut some into lardons and used those too.
What I Did
The biggest issue with roasting a chicken is getting the legs and thighs cooked through, whilst keeping the breasts moist. To get around this problem I remove the legs of the chicken and cook them along side the breasts in a large frying pan. Taking the legs off is much easier than it sounds, and once you’ve done it a few times, you’ll be dying to show your mates when they come round for dinner (maybe that’s just me).
Once you have the legs off give the chicken a light brush with oil (this is to give the seasoning something to stick too), then season liberally, inside and out, with salt and pepper.
Turn the oven on at 225C. Put a frying pan (which can go in the oven and is large enough to house all the chicken pieces comfortably) on a high heat and add in a good glug of oil. Once hot, place the legs and the crown skin side down in the pan. Colour = Flavour in this case so get the skin nice and golden.
After 5 minutes flip onto the other breast and turn the legs over so they are skin side up. Leave these for another 5 minutes, until even though you know they’re still raw inside, your pretty tempted to give it a go. After this 10 minutes of flavour creation, add a few knobs of butter to the pan, turn the legs back to being skin side down and turn the crown skin side up. Add the whole garlic cloves to the pan, a few sprigs of rosemary and bang it in the oven
.
The chicken is going to take 30 minutes to cook so thats plenty of time to prepare and cook the beans. (Also – to make the chicken tastier and juicier, baste it with the garlic & rosemary butter every ten minutes)
If using the bacon lardons, start by frying these in a dry saucepan as these will produce delicious fat to saute the shallots, mushrooms, rosemary and chopped garlic in.
If you’re not using the lardons simply add some oil to the pan. Don’t forget to season as you go with salt and pepper.
When the mushrooms, shallots and garlic have all softened, tip the lardons back in and add the two tins of drained butter beans. Stir and keep warm over a low heat until the chicken is ready.
After 30 minutes (and some basting) the chicken you remove from the oven will look like a bronzed Adonis compared to its former self. However, despite your instincts you can’t dive in straight away; remove the chicken from the pan to a chopping board and allow to rest for 5 mins whilst you add the finishing touches to the beans. Remove the rosemary from the chicken pan and as much of the butter/oil/fat as you like (I like to leave a little in the pan as it’s full of flavour). Place this pan back onto a high heat and deglaze with the white wine, stirring furiously to remove as much stuck on goodness from the bottom of the pan as possible. Tip this liquid nectar in with the beans, add the parsley, check for seasoning and give them one final stir.
To serve we need to divide the chicken into quantities which will result in the fewest arguments possible. To do this I split each leg into a thigh and drumstick, and each breast into two, a smaller piece with the wing attached and a larger piece without. Pile the beans onto a plate or into a bowl and top with the chicken – thigh and small piece of breast or larger piece of breast and a drumstick seems to keep this household fairly content and debate free, but I’ll update you with any future developments!
Pour a glass of white wine and enjoy.
Easy? Once you’ve mastered jointing the chicken, the rest of it is pretty straightforward and there is no major prep so you can just grab your ingredients and go.
Healthy? You could easily omit the butter and lardons. Skimming the excess oil from the pan will also make it a bit healthier.
Cheap? This meal cost less than £10 for everything. Our chicken was £5 and everything else was bought for a previous meal and the butter beans were lying in the cupboard. It could probably stretch to feeding 4 people as a main course.
dinnerwiththesmiths 