Читать книгу The Intolerant Gourmet: Free-from Recipes for Everyone - Pippa Kendrick - Страница 27

Spring Chicken with Lemon and Herbs and Roasted Sweet Potatoes

This is a beautiful spring dish, simple to make but packed full of flavour. I like to serve it with a large salad of fresh lettuce leaves: red oak, rocket, cos and radicchio are all perfect. Equally, a pea and green bean salad would make a great accompaniment.

Serves 4

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1 x 1.6kg/3½lb chicken

1kg/2lb 3oz sweet potatoes

3 tbsp olive oil

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the herb rub

3 cloves of garlic

A small bunch of flat-leaf parsley

A small bunch of marjoram

Leaves from 4 sprigs of thyme

2 tbsp dairy-free margarine (ideally Pure Sunflower Spread)

Grated zest and juice of 1 lemon (reserving the juiced halves) and finely chopped peel of ½ lemon

1 tbsp English mustard (1 heaped tbsp mustard powder mixed with 1 tbsp water)

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 240°C/475°F/gas mark 9.

Make the herb rub by first crushing the garlic and finely chopping the parsley and marjoram. Mix them together in a bowl with the thyme leaves, margarine, lemon zest and peel and mustard, seasoning well with salt and pepper.

Using a spoon, carefully lift the skin of the chicken from around its cavity and, with your hands, push the lemon and herb rub underneath the skin, spreading over the chicken as far and as evenly as you can without breaking the skin. Place the chicken in a large roasting tin, stuffing the cavity with the leftover lemon halves, then pour the lemon juice over the whole chicken and season well with salt and pepper.

Peel the sweet potatoes and cut into large chunks, approximately 5cm/2in in size. Surround the chicken with the sweet potatoes and pour over the olive oil.

Place in the oven, immediately reducing the temperature to 220°C/425°F/gas mark 7, and roast for 1 hour and 10 minutes or until the chicken is golden and, when pierced with a skewer, the juices run clear. (Always test the meat of the thigh rather than the breast as it is the slowest to cook.) If you feel the chicken or sweet potatoes are browning too quickly, then cover with foil for the remaining cooking time.

Once roasted, remove from the oven, cover with foil and allow to rest for 10 minutes before serving.