Oven-roasted Chicken with Tomato, Feta and Olives

Here is a good recipe for a crowd. If you judge the cooking time right, and you use good, fresh, free-range chicken, you'll end up with the most succulent, tender chicken, infused with a summery flavour of tomatoes and basil. This recipe was inspired by a Jamie Oliver recipe that I saw while browsing one of his books in Exclusive Books. I tried to memorise the ingredients, but by the time I'd got home I'd forgotten them. I remembered the tomatoes, both chopped ones and cherry ones, and had to invent the rest of the recipe. Here's a quick version using my all-purpose cooking elixir.

Oven-roasted Chicken with Tomato, Feta and Olives

For the marinade:
1 cup (250 ml) cooking elixir*
1 tablespoon fresh rosemary needles
finely grated rind of 1 lemon

For the dish:
8 pieces of free-range chicken (thighs and breasts are best)
salt and milled black pepper
1 large punnet ripe cherry tomatoes
4 plump, ripe tomatoes, quartered
1 cup (250 ml) white wine
a handful fresh basil leaves
1/2 (125 ml) cup black olives
2 disks feta cheese (about 1 heaped cup when crumbled). I use Simonsberg black-pepper feta, which crumbles beautifully. Don't use Danish feta cheese.
½ cup (125 ml) cream (optional)

To garnish:
Fresh basil

Place the chicken pieces in a large ceramic or stainless-steel oven dish. Season well with salt and pepper. With a fork, aggressively prick the chicken pieces all over, top and bottom. Shake your jar of cooking elixir well, measure out a cup and pour it over the chicken pieces, turning each one well to coat. Place in a cool spot and allow to marinate for at least an hour (or overnight, in the fridge).

Preheat the oven to its highest setting (22o°C on most ovens), and place the dish in the oven. Bake for about 15 minutes, or until the chicken skin is golden and beginning to blister.

Remove the dish from the oven and drain off excess fat by tilting the dish over the sink. Scatter the cherry tomatoes and quartered tomatoes all over and in between the chicken pieces. Pour in the wine. Roughly tear the basil pieces and tuck down between the chicken pieces.

Return the dish to the oven, turn the the heat down to 180°C and cook for 30-40 minutes, or until the chicken pieces are cooked right through. (Test by poking a knife into the thickest part of the chicken thigh: if the juices are crystal clear and unbloody, the chicken is ready). Remove the dish from the oven, and toss the chicken pieces so they are well covered with juices. If you are feeling decadent, add the cream now. Scatter with olives and crumbled feta cheese. Put the dish back in the oven for another 10 minutes.

Allow to rest for five minutes before serving. Scatter with freshly torn basil and serve with new potatoes or crusty bread, and a green salad.

* If you haven't made a batch of cooking elixir, use this marinade:

3 cloves fresh garlic, crushed
Juice and finely grated rind of two lemons
1 T (15 ml) soy sauce
1 tsp (5 ml) Tabasco sauce
100 ml olive oil
10 ml dried oregano

Serves 6.

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Beer-can chicken on a braai

Tony Park, a reader of my other blog Salmagundi, sent this recipe. I haven't tried it, but I will, as soon as it warms up outside.

'Can't cook to save my life (except for barbies - braais to you - a skill which australian males learn from birth). Here's my only variation on sticking stuff on the fire - and I learned it from a South African psychology professor, in Kruger.'

Beer Can Chicken on a Braai
1 can of Castle
1 cardboard box lined with aluminium foil, and with four pen-diameter holes punched in the top.
1 braai with hot coals
1 chicken

Drink two sips from can of Castle, insert it up chicken's bum. Stand the chicken on the braai, using its two drumstick bones and the can as a kind of tripod, to hold it upright. Braai grid should be about 20cm over the coals.

Place cardboard box lined with foil (held in place with strategic use of duct tape) over the chicken. Make sure the foil overlaps the sides of the box so it doesn't catch fire.

Wait one hour.

Eat perfectly roasted, tender chicken.

Do not drink contents of can.

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This recipe reminds me irresistibly of that wonderful scene in Withnail and I when the boys try to kill a chicken.

Withnail: What are we supposed to do with that?
I: Eat it
Withnail: Eat it!? Fucker's alive
I: Yeah, you've got to kill it.
Withnail: Me!? I'm the firelighter and fuel collecter.
I: Yeah I know but I got the logs in. It takes away your appetite just looking at it.
Withnail: No it doesn't, I'm starving. How can we make it die?
I: You've got to throttle them. Withnail, I think you ought to kill it instantly in case it starts trying to make friends with us.
Withnail: All right, you get hold of it. I'll strangle it.

They try stuffing it into a kettle, and then give up and sit it upright on a brick, with a wet boot on either side to keep it upright. Wonderful movie (I saw it again a few weeks ago, and it hasn't dated a bit). Print Friendly

Lemony Chicken Strips: my family's all-time top-rated supper

It's a nice recipe, I admit, but not so tasty it sends me into raptures. So why do my kids beg me on bended knees to make this week after week? Is it the lemonyness? Is it the chickeniness? You tell me: make it yourself, try it out on the kids, and send me some feedback.

This is a simple recipe with just a few ingredients. It's a bit too much work for my liking - I detest having to stand in front of a stove frying things - but I admit that it's worth the effort. I can't remember where I read this recipe - I seem to remember that it was in an article about the favourite dishes of famous chefs.

Lemony Chicken Strips
8 deboned, skinless chicken breasts
1/2 cup (125 ml) white flour
salt & freshly milled black pepper
2 T sunflower oil
2 T butter
1 skinny clove garlic, crushed
the juice of 3 lemons
1 cup (250 ml) white wine or stock
a generous handful of fresh parsley, finely chopped

Lay the chicken breasts flat on a board. Cut out the fillet and slice vertically into two strips. Now cut horizontally through the breast, to make two thin leaves. Cut the leaves lengthways to make thin strips about 5 cm long.

Put the flour into a plastic bag or bowl and add a few pinches of salt and a generous grinding of black pepper. Now add the chicken strips and toss well to coat.

Heat the oil and butter in a large, flat-bottomed pan or frying pan, over a high flame. When the fats stop foaming, turn the heat down to medium. Remove the chicken strips from the bag or bowl and shake off any excess flour - they should be lightly dusted. Fry the chicken, in batches, until it's golden brown on the outside (don't worry if the strips are not cooked through). Put the cooked chicken strips onto a plate while you fry the rest. Add more oil to the pan if necessary, but don't let any dark, burned bits develop. (If they do, wipe out the pan with some kitchen paper, and start again with fresh oil and butter).

Remove the last pieces of chicken from the pan. Tip the frying pan over the sink to remove any excess fat, then replace on the heat and add the lemon juice, the garlic and and the wine (or stock or water). Using a wooden spoon or spatula, stir and scrape to release the golden-brown residue on the bottom of the pan. Turn down the heat, and allow the mixture to bubble for a minute. Now put the chicken and its leaked juices back into the pan and stir gently. As the flour is released from the chicken strips, the sauce will thicken slightly. Allow to simmer for a few minutes, or until the strips are cooked right through, but still meltingly tender. Turn off the heat, season with salt and black pepper, stir in the chopped parsley and toss well.

Serve with lemon wedges, a green salad and boiled new potatoes.

Serves 5.

Recipe rating:

My rating: 7/10
Teenagers' rating: 10/10. 'Don't finish it all, you pig. I want some in my lunch box tomorrow.'
Small-daughter rating: 10/10. Not one complaint. Print Friendly

Creamy Lemon Tarragon Chicken, a la Nigel Slater

What do you do if you're feeling cold, forlorn and demotivated? You head off in the direction of the kitchen with a copy of your favourite recipe book of the moment (Nigel Slater's The Kitchen Diaries), rummage around in the fridge, and see what's mouldering there.

I happened to have a bag of fresh tarragon (a herb I have never succeeded in growing) , which I'd bought at the Dunkeld veggie shop, Johannesburg, because it looked so fresh and crisp. I also had a cut-up chicken, so I decided to make Nigel's chicken dish with Vermouth (which I didn't have: who does?) and cream (which I did have.

I took my time making this dish, and followed his instructions to a tee. (Except that he forgot to say whether the chicken pieces should be turned over during the browning proces; I turned them over).

It was just delicious: the chicken was tender, and the sauce was gorgeous, even though I added a scant tablespoon of flour to thicken and stabilise it (sorry Nigel), and substituted fresh lemon juice and white wine for the Vermouth and vinegar.

Creamy Lemon Tarragon Chicken
3 tablespoons butter
1 tsp olive oil
salt and freshly milled pepper
8 pieces free-range chicken (4 thighs, 4 breasts)
1 tablespoon flour
juice of 2 lemons
1 cup (250 ml) white wine
a handful of fresh tarragon (use parsley if you can't find tarrgon)
1 carton (250 ml) fresh cream

Put the butter and olive oil in a deep frying pan and heat it until it stops bubbling. Don' t allow the butter to brown. Season the chicken top and bottom with salt and pepper. Place the chicken, skin side down, in the hot pan, and fry gently until the chicken skin is a golden brown and crispy. Turn the chicken pieces over and fry for another 3-4 minutes. With a slotted spoon, remove the chicken and set aside.

Tip the frying pan over the sink and drain off all but about one tablespoon of the fat. Now put the pan back on the heat, and sprinkle 1 tablespoon of flour over the bottom. Stir and scrape, then tip in the lemon juice and wine, stirring briskly to loosen the brown bits on the bottom. Allow to bubble for 1 minute, then add the carton of cream. Roughly chop the tarragon and add it to the pan. Now put the chicken pieces back in the pan, together with their juices, skin side up. Cover the pan with a lid or tin foil.

Turn the heat down to its lowest setting and allow to bubble gently for 25-35 minutes. Shake the dish now and then to prevent the cream from sticking.

When you think it's ready, take a sharp knife and cut to the bone on one of the thighs. If the juices are running clear, and have no trace of pinkness, the chicken's ready.

Serve with mashed potato.

Serves 6 -8

Recipe rating:
My rating: 8/10
Teenagers' rating: 6/10
Small-daughter rating: 4/10 (she didn't like the chicken skin, which she said was 'slimy'.) Print Friendly