LESSON LEARNED

Please forgive me for repeating a picture - it's just that David Roche's version of his slow cooked chicken looked alot prettier than mine!

I think that it's a very good sign when a cookery demonstration inspires you to cook a dish within a day of seeing it prepared, and David should take a bow!!  I was really anxious to try this pot roast chicken and to see if it was really as easy as it looked, and if it could handle all that salt!

My version was all I hoped it would be, really moist and packed full of flavour,  and I don't know where all the salt disappeared to, it just made a free range chicken taste like an organic one! (There were no organic chickens available when I shopped)

The only bit of faffing around was the browning of the chicken before it goes into the oven, but that only takes a couple of minutes and is really worth it.  About 35 minutes before the chicken was cooked I added new potatoes and carrots to the casserole - next time I will put them back in the oven to brown while the chicken is resting - that really is the joy of everyday cooking, you learn by trial and error with no pressure!

The really good thing about this chicken is that there is loads and loads of really tasty oil left - I am going to use some of it with the juices and some of the meat to make a simplified version of Nigella's Venetian Chicken.  I will just cook some pasta and dry roast some pine nuts.  When the pasta is just short of done, I'll drain it, put it back in the pan add some of the juice, oil, chicken and  the pine nuts -bring this back to hot and serve. Really, really delicious.



Pot Roast Salted Chicken with Lemon and Rosemary


1   medium fresh chicken
Good handful of Maldon salt (or similar)
250ml  olive oil
1 tbsp   flour (heaped)
1 head  garlic
4 sprigs of rosemary
1 lemon
100ml  white wine
150ml  chicken stock (I forgot about the stock, to no ill effect!)


Rub the chicken with the salt and leave to stand in the fridge for at least 20 minutes.

After the 20 minutes preheat the oven to 150 C, and heat the oil in a casserole (big enough to hold the chicken)
Split the garlic into bulbs but leave the skin on, and put into the warming oil.
Bring the oil up to hot.
Rub the chicken with the flour, and then place breast first into the casserole to seal and brown.  Seal all the chicken in the oil.
Squeeze the lemon over the chicken and place it and the rosemary in the pot, add the stock and wine.
Put the lid on and bake in the oven for 90 minutes.
Remove the lid for the last 10 minutes of cooking.
When cooked remove the chicken from the pot and allow to rest for 15 minutes, then place in a platter and garnish with olives and some of the cooking liquor.

Enjoy.