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Roast Chicken with Herbs and Chilli

Feb 7, 2012 by     No Comments    Posted under: A to Z of recipes, Main courses

Herb Chicken

An easy and relatively healthy dish!

Serves 4 Preparation time 10 mins Cooking time 1 hour Cost 4.80

Method
1. Preheat the oven to 200C.
2. If using the butter or olive oil, combine the garlic, herbs, paprika, salt, chilli powder, black pepper and lemon juice with the butter or oil and smear the resulting paste all over the chicken. (It is important to use coarsely ground black pepper – fine black pepper doesn’t taste anywhere near as good). If you prefer, omit the butter or oil – the chicken tastes almost as good without it.
3. Place the chicken, onion and potatoes in a large roasting or casserole dish which has a tight fitting lid, or if you don’t have a lid then cover the chicken tightly with foil and cook for 1 hour in the preheated oven.
(Cooking time for roast chicken is 20 minutes/450g plus an extra 15 minutes in total).
4. For the last 5 minutes of the cooking time, uncover the chicken and place it under a grill at 220C to make the skin crisp and brown.

Ingredients
4 chicken legs or a 1kg whole chicken
3 cloves crushed garlic
2 teaspoons dried mixed herbs (thyme, oregano, parsley, sage and marjoram), or finely chopped fresh herbs
½ teaspoon paprika
¼ – ½ teaspoon red chilli powder (optional)
½ teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper
¼ teaspoon salt
Juice of 1 lemon
1 large red onion, cut into quarters
2 tablespoons softened butter or olive oil (optional)
4 small maris piper potatoes

Additional information

This is a dish which my mother used to make for Sunday lunch when we first came to the UK from India in 1973 – most Sundays the whole extended family would descend on us for lunch, and spiced up roast chicken was a relatively easy dish to cook for the vast hordes. (My mother was doing ‘fusion cooking’ before the term came into existence!) We didn’t know about the existence of gravy in those days, and anyway this chicken didn’t need it as it was always moist and tender – cooked to perfection. This dish goes well with garlic bread and roast vegetables – (mixed peppers, courgettes and aubergines).

I find cooking whole leg pieces on their own works out better than cooking a whole chicken – the leg pieces all need the same amount of cooking time, unlike a whole chicken where the breast always cooks more quickly than the legs, so the breast usually ends up a bit drier than the leg pieces when cooking them together.

Nutrition Information

Nutrition per 100g per portion RDA women RDA men RDA child
Polyunsaturates* 1.6 g 5.9 g
Mono Unsaturates* 4.8 g 17 g
Saturated Fat* 2.3 g 8.3 g 42% 28% 42%
Total Sugars* 0.8 g 2.9 g 3% 2% 3%
Carbohydrate 6.1 g 22 g 9% 7% 10%
Energy 152 kcal 546 kcal 27% 22% 30%
Protein 11 g 40 g 88% 72% 165%
Fat* 9.4 g 34 g 49% 36% 49%
Fibre NSP* 0.6 g 2.2 g 12% 12% 15%

* Percentage Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet for an average adult.
Your Daily Values may be higher or lower depending on your calorie needs.

Cost per recipe:£4.80
Cost per portion:£1.20

 

 

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