A fresh touch to Sunday lunch
Every now and then a recipe comes along with combined ingredients so perfectly paired that an unforgettable symphony of flavour and taste is created – and this is one of those recipes. Roast Chicken with Lemon Potatoes and Salsa Verde – beautiful Italian flavours with an easy one-tray oven cooking technique that anyone can make.
How to make the perfect roast chicken
The answer is to always butterfly the chicken. Butterflying (spatchcocking) chicken is a method that involves removing the chicken backbone which enables you to lay the bird flat. This technique reduces cooking time as well as allowing heat to circulate more evenly through and around the meat more evenly. Learn how to butterfly a chicken with this video:
Don’t add oil to the chicken or the pan
No oil is required to get the skin nice and crispy, just rub it with salt and allow the natural chicken fat to release and crisp on its own. This also means the potatoes will suck up all the pure chicken fat and flavour and without swimming in additional oil.
Lemon mustard potato marinade
To further enhance these wonderfully soft but crispy chicken-fat roasted potatoes, a marinade of mustard, garlic, oregano and lemon gives a third dimension of flavour. Cooked in the oven long enough to slightly caramelise and brown on the outside produces a delicious moreish chew.
The best Italian salsa verde recipe
This extremely versatile salsa verde recipe can pimp up endless ingredients to create instant impressive meals. Very easy to make and full of bright green herbs and zingy salty flavours with capers, anchovies and lemon juice – it’s a sauce to really fall in love with.
Roast Chicken with Lemon Potatoes and Salsa Verde
Ingredients
Roast Chicken
- 1 large chicken
- 600 g small potatoes such as Fingerling
- Sea salt flakes preferrably Maldon
Lemon Mustard Potato Marinade
- 1 tsp garlic powder or 1 fresh garlic clove, crushed
- 1 tbsp Dijon mustard
- 2 tbsp lemon juice
- 2 tsp dried oregano
- Salt and pepper
Salsa Verde
Instructions
- Heat the oven to 200°C
- Butterfly chicken by removing the backbone. See the instructional video here.
- Season each side of chicken with salt then transfer to an oven roasting tray, laying flat skin side up. Set a timer to 30 minutes and start roasting.
- Combine all ingredients for the potato marinade in a small bowl. Set aside.
- Peel potatoes and chop in half lengthways. After 30 minutes of roasting the chicken, remove the tray from the oven and spread potatoes around the chicken rolling in chicken fat. Return to the oven and continue to roast for a further 15 – 20 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through.
- Remove the tray again from the oven, transfer the chicken to a large plate and allow it to rest whilst you continue to cook the potatoes.
- Toss potatoes around the roasting pan to cover again in chicken fat. Season with sea salt flakes then spoon lemon-mustard potato marinade into the pan. Toss potatoes around again covering each potato evenly in the marinade. Return to the oven for a further 10 minutes or until potatoes are crispy outside and beautifully cooked through to the center.
- To finish: Carve chicken into 2, 4, 6 or 8 pieces. Serve alongside lemon-mustard potatoes and a bowl of salsa verde. Additionally, some fresh green salad leaves would pair nicely.
