Seasonal local food recipe No.350 – Nigella’s roast chicken with lemon, rosemary, garlic, leeks and potatoes
This Nigella Lawson recipe appears in 20 best one-pot recipes in The Observer’s Food Monthly supplement. It’s easy to prepare and tastes delicious.
Serves 6
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Cooking time: 1 hour 20 minutes
Ingredients
4 tbsp olive oil
2 tsp rosemary needles, finely chopped, plus more to serve
1 bulb garlic, separated into unpeeled cloves
2 leeks
1 kg waxy potatoes, washed if necessary, but unpeeled
2 unwaxed lemons
1 medium chicken (approx. 1.4 kg)
sea salt flakes to taste
Method
Preheat the oven to 220°C/Gas mark 7. Get out the biggest roasting tin you have, and pour all but a teaspoon or so of the oil into it. Throw in the chopped rosemary needles and the garlic cloves.
Trim the leeks and cut each in half lengthways, then slice into half-moons and drop these leek curls into the tin too. Cut the potatoes into 1.5 cm slices, then cut each slice into 4, or just halve them if the potatoes are small, and add these to the tin. Quarter the lemons, then cut each quarter in half, take out as many pips as you can and toss the lemon quarters into the pan.
Now schmoosh everything to mix, and then make a space in the middle of the tin for the chicken to sit in. Untruss the chicken, place it in the reserved parking place, pour the tiny bit of the remaining oil on top of it and sprinkle sea salt flakes on top of the chicken only.
Place in the oven for 1 hour and 10 minutes, and if the juices of the chicken run clear when you push the tip of a knife into the joint where the thigh meets the body, remove the chicken to a board to sit, letting the juices from its cavity spill back into the tin as you do so.
Then put the potato mixture back in the oven for 10 minutes until soft and golden. If the chicken needs longer, keep everything in the oven until the chicken is cooked. When it’s ready, and the chicken has rested, carve it or cut into joints as wished. Sprinkle with 1/2 a teaspoon of finely chopped rosemary needles and sea salt flakes to taste.
