- I’m using skin-on boneless Chicken breasts – ‘skin-on’ is important, to keep the chicken from drying out during cooking – Chicken Supremes, or legs and thighs would be excellent too.
- If you can plan far enough ahead to put the marinade together, up to 24 hours ahead of time, and stick the chicken in for a swim, it will reward your efforts.
- However, if that’s not possible, just make the marinade first, stick the chicken in, and leave it there while you prepare the potatoes and cauliflower.
T’will all be grand..
EQUIPMENT:
- A large oven-proof tray – mine is 35x23cms – or even a large Lasagne dish
- a Med-Large glass bowl
- A grater
- A set of cooking tongs
INGREDIENTS:
For the marinade:
- A large thumb of ginger, peeled and grated
- 2-3 cloves of garlic, grated
- 1/2 a large Green Chili, finely chopped
- 2 tablespoons yoghurt – we only ever have Greek yoghurt in the house so I used that.
- 1 teaspoon salt flakes
- 1/4 teaspoon cayenne; careful! It’s spicy-hot!
- 1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
- 1 teaspoon soft brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon paprika
- 1 teaspoon garam masala
The rest:
- 4 Chicken breasts, skin on – OR enough chicken thighs and/or drumsticks to feed your family; skin on, if possible.
- A 500g bag of baby potatoes, washed and halved, or 1-2 medium potatoes per person, scrubbed or peeled and chopped into bite-size pieces.
- 1 medium/large Cauliflower, broken into medium-sized florettes – not too small, as Cauliflower shrinks quite a bit when you roast it.
- Olive Oil
- a sprinkle of Cumin seeds – or Fennel seeds – I’m particularly fond of them.
- Sprinkling of salt flakes – I use Maldon salt.
- A few dollops of Greek Yoghurt, some thinly sliced red onion crescents pickled in lemon juice, and lemon wedges to serve – entirely optional.
METHOD:
- Make up the marinade – put it all into the bowl and mix together.
Mix all the marinade ingredients together, and put the chicken in..
- Add the chicken pieces and coat with the marinade, cover and refrigerate for as long as possible – up to 24 hours.
- Line the baking tray with tin foil – yes, I am bone idle – and drizzle over some oil, or simply rub some oil onto a large ceramic lasagne dish. Put to one side.
- Heat the oven to 180º Fan.
- Prepare the Cauliflower and potatoes.
- Add 2 tablespoonfuls of Oil to the baking tray, add the vegetables and stir them around until everything has a generous covering of oil.
- Remove the chicken pieces from their marinade, and nestle them into between the potatoes and cauliflower. Discard the rest of the marinade.
- Drizzle generously with more oil, sprinkle over the Cumin/Fennel seeds and the salt.
- Stick the whole lot into the oven, and put the timer on for 30 minutes.
- After 30 minutes, turn over the potatoes and cauliflower pieces to make sure they’re cooking evenly.
- While it’s cooking you can thinly slice one or two red onions and pickle them by squeezing half a lemon liberally over them, and leaving to one side. Cut the rest of the lemon into small wedges so that people can squeeze it over the Chicken if they feel like it. All this but is optional. A dollop of Greek yoghurt will do rightly if you’re busy.
- Return to the oven for another 20-30 minutes, until the vegetables are tender and the skin of the chicken has charred a little around the edges. I start testing at the 20 minutes stage.
- You really don’t need to serve anything else with this, apart from a dollop of Greek yoghurt, and some thinly sliced red onions, as mentioned above.
- I usually just bring the baking tray straight for the oven to the table and serve it there.
I started writing down recipes in an old copybook when I was about 16. With 6 children at home, my Mother was always glad of a hand in the kitchen, and really allowed us to experiment - as long as we washed up afterwards, and left the kitchen immaculate! Having a tidy kitchen has followed me through my life, as has the habit of writing down my favourite recipes; except that these days I write them for my website, and add photographs when I can. The website really started when it occurred to me that my daughter might like to have these recipes when I've forgotten them. In my early days of cooking for family and friends, I used to phone my Mum all the time to ask her for the recipe for some of our favourite family dinners. She rarely had a recipe to hand - I think, like me, she made a lot of it up as she went along.. So welcome to Eating for Ireland - these are the recipes that my friends and family having been eating these past 40 years.. yes, I truly am ancient! They are tried and tested, and have worked for me for all that time - I have updated them as new ingredients became available - I really hope you'll find something that you can make into a family favourite of your own. You don't have to tell anyone where you found these great new dishes that you're serving up - it can be our little secret, but I'd really love it if you could give me a sneaky 'follow' on Facebook and Instagram.. So off you go - have a good rummage around, you're bound to find something new! My sincere thanks to all of you who have found a recipe that you liked and dropped me a line to tell me - I really do love to hear from you! Happy Cooking! Becks xx