Kate of A Merrier World is helping to draw attention to the plight of battery chickens through her blogging event, Let Them Eat Chicken. This is a fantastic cause which will hopefully help to prevent animal cruelty by making people more aware of the suffering of broiler hens. For more information about "broiler" rearing systems, please follow the link to Kate's event announcement.
For this event, Kate has asked us to post about our favourite recipe using free range chicken. My chicken came from Prahran Market in Melbourne. It was a lovely, plump, large bird, as you can see form the photograph below.
I was making dinner for company (my friend Veronica), so I have selected a scrumptious recipe for Spanish Roast Chicken by Jamie Oliver from his book, Jamie's Dinners. The resulting roast chicken is superb - the smoky, chorizo and lemon flavoured roast chicken sits on a bed of crunchy, lemon and chorizo flavoured roast potatoes, and the whole lot is superb! It is also relatively fuss-free to make. I served it with green beans dressed simply with salt, pepper and butter, and roast pumpkin, onion and carrot.
To make this dish, you will require:
1 free range chicken, ~2kg
2 lemons
1 kg potatoes, peeled and diced
200g cured chorizo, sliced 1/2 cm thick
cooking oil
salt and pepper
Preheat the oven to 220 degrees Celsius. Boil the potatoes and 2 lemons in a saucepan of water for approximately 5 minutes. Drain the lot in a colander, and pierce the lemons all over with a sharp bladed knife. Put the lemons inside the cavity of the chicken, and season both the chicken and the potatoes with salt and pepper.
Line a baking tray with wetted baking paper. Put the potatoes on the baking tray in a single layer, and place the chicken on top. Sprinkle over the chorizo slices, spray or drizzle the chicken with cooking oil, and place in the preheated oven to bake for about 1 hour 20 minutes.
Once cooked, remove the chicken from the oven and set aside, then put the potatoes back in the oven for about 5 minutes to crisp before serving with the chicken and whatever side dishes you please.
This is a really delicious way to cook chicken. There is also no comparison between the luscious flavour and texture of a free range bird and a poor old artificially plumped up battery hen.
Mmmmm, this sounds delicious! Thanks for taking part in Let Them Eat Chicken, Cakelaw :-)
ReplyDeleteWonderful post! We always buy free-range chicken and eggs, and we make sure we're buying locally, as well.
ReplyDeleteYour chicken looks delicious!
Sounds delicious. Stuffing the chicken with lemons sounds terrific. I might do that soon.
ReplyDeleteThat looks like one yummy roast. I'm always looking out for new chook recipes; thanks for a lovely one :)
ReplyDeleteI would have never thought to add chorizo to a roast chicken, but that looks really really delicious!
ReplyDeleteUmmm, chorizo can only do one thing to this chicken...send the flavours to heaven!
ReplyDeleteNice. I love the idea of the chorizo. Yum
ReplyDeleteMMMM, I love roasted chicken! I like how you put it on a bed of potatoes - it looks so delicious. I bet the potatoes picked up the fat nicely.
ReplyDeleteI really like Jamie's book, it's fantastic!
ReplyDeleteI can certainly taste the luscious flavor of the chicken... yum...yum...yum!
We've gotta go find our selves a good free range bird now. Lately it's been eating the plumped up batter hen!
Oh, this sounds delicious. And free-range chicken carcasses make for lovely stock or soup. :)
ReplyDeleteDelicious, and for a good cause - looks great!
ReplyDeletewell presented and thanks for sharing...free-range chicken preparation must have been very tasty.
ReplyDeleteFabulous roasted chicken...looks mouthwatering! Love this preparation:)
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