Recipe: Roast Chicken on Parmesan Crusted Toast
A wonderful combination of the best Italian flavours
There is no wrong-doing when combining roasted chicken, garlic and tomatoes, using the pan juices as a sauce and serving alongside crusty bread. But why stop there when with just a little more effort you can have a mouth-watering, parmesan-crusted toast to lay underneath? Juicy chicken topped with a white wine-chicken-rich-fat sauce, fresh herbs, citrus and creamy roasted garlic bulbs oozing over the crusty umami toast.
Easy baked chicken parmesan recipe – ‘Butterfly the chicken for a faster cooking time
Spatchcocking (or butterflying) chicken reduces cooking time to 50 minutes or less, depending on your oven temperatures and the size of your bird. It also guarantees very crunchy skin. The trick is to just salt the skin but avoid using any oil or butter to baste. The high chicken fat content in the skin will keep it nice and moist and allow the skin to crisp and crunch up.
Watch the video below for how to ‘Butterfly’ a chicken…
It’s All About The Sauce
Tomato, garlic, white wine and tasty chicken fat. It’s the perfect combination. Adding a dash of sumac or a good squeeze of lemon juice will cut through the salt and fast and bring in an element of zingy freshness.
Pan-fried and parmesan-crusted toast acts as a crunchy base that soaks up all the juices, making each mouthful moreish and filling.
How to prepare the dish
Lay down a piece of pan-fried parmesan-crusted toast, layer chicken on top, spoon over juices and sprinkle with fresh parsley or basil. Enjoy with a glass of wine!
- Want to know which is the best parmesan to use for this recipe? Click here to read Flaevor’s blog post about authentic Italian parmesan and other alternatives
Roast Chicken on Parmesan Crusted Toast
Ingredients
- 1 whole chicken spatchcocked
- 6 tomatoes cut in half
- 6 large cloves garlic peeled
- 1 large twig rosemary leaves removed and roughly chopped
- 2 twigs thyme leaves removed from stem
- 200 ml white wine
- 125 ml chicken stock
- 1 heaped tsp sumac or a squeeze of lemon juice
- Olive oil for drizzling
- Sea salt flakes
- 1 loaf crusty white bread sliced thickly
- Butter
- 60 gm grated parmesan cheese
Instructions
- Using a large roasting tray, pour in white wine and place spatchcocked chicken on top, skin side up. Place tomatoes and garlic bulbs around the chicken. Scatter rosemary and thyme around the tray (but not on the chicken).
- Drizzle each tomato half with a little olive oil. Do not put olive oil on the chicken, there is enough chicken fat in the skin and adding more oil will prevent the skin from going crispy.
- Season chicken and tomatoes with sea salt flakes. Roast at 200 degrees 45 minutes, then turn up the heat to 220 and roast a further 10 minutes. This will help the skin crisp up nicely and tomatoes become charred and sticky.
- Carefully remove chicken from the roasting tray and pour in chicken stock and sumac. Bring pan juices to the boil and gently crush tomatoes and garlic bulbs into the sauce. Let it bubble for a minute or two until it has thickened slightly. Remove from heat and cover to keep warm.
- Add butter to a frying pan and fry the bread until nicely browned. Flip the bread over and sprinkle the toasted side generously with grated parmesan. When the bread side facing down has toasted nicely, quickly flip bread again to allow the parmesan to melt onto the toast. Remove from pan and repeat for remaining bread.
- Carve chicken into required pieces. To plate the dish, start by laying down a piece of parmesan toast, top with chicken, spoon tomatoes and roasted garlic sauce over chicken and toast. Top with more grated parmesan, chopped parsley nad drizzle with olive oil.
Notes
The best parmesan cheese comes from Modena, Italy. Click here for more information
*Sumac and other spices can be purchased online with Amazon or in the UK at Sous Chef
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