Day 12 of 12 Days of Christmas!
And that brings us to the end of the series — but we’ve definitely saved the best for last. Any celebration in the Malabar Tea Room household generally involves roast chicken, and with good reason — it’s easy to prep in advance, people always ‘oooh’ when you bring a whole roasted chicken to the table, and if you’re lucky, you might have leftovers the next day to repurpose into soup, or a sandwich or even fried rice. This is a roast chicken recipe that has been in the family for as long as as the Green Harissa Roast Chicken. It started out as a recipe we tried from one of Jamie’s cookbooks (his Peri-Peri Roast Chicken), but over the years, every single ingredient from Jamie’s recipe has been swapped out except the capsicum. Like the Green Harissa Roast Chicken, the best part about this recipe is that I can guarantee you will have at least 90% of the ingredients in your pantry already. In that sense, it’s an emergency roast chicken. It requires no fuss, and is on standby for those days when you need a little comfort in the form of roasted poultry. However, it would be a crime to save it only for an emergency — it is definitely good enough to be served at a celebration. What I’m trying to say is, it’s a roast chicken for the good times, and the bad.
RECIPE:Heavenly Roast Chicken
Ingredients
1 whole chicken, skin on (we like a 1kg bird)
6 garlic cloves
1 red capsicum, cut into chunks
3-4 Birds Eye chilli
1/2 small onion
1 tbsp tomato paste
2 tbsp oil
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 chicken stock cube (optional)
20 g butter
Salt
For the potatoes
700 g potato, peeled and cut lengthwise into wedges
2 tbsp oil
Salt
Method
Blend all of these ingredients (except the chicken, obviously) until it forms a smooth paste.
Taste, add more salt if needed. The marinade needs to be about 2 shades too salty, so keep his in mind when tasting.
Reserve two tablespoons of this marinade and pour the rest over the chicken, and massage it all over — inside the skin and into the cavity.
Let it marinate covered, in the refrigerator overnight if possible.
If you’re in a hurry, salt the chicken, and then pour the paste on top and proceed. This is your best chance at getting in as much flavour in as little time as possible.
When ready to roast, bring the chicken to room temperature if it was refrigerated, and preheat the oven to 180 Celsius.
Toss the potatoes with oil and salt.
Tie up the legs of the chicken with some food-grade twine (optional), and tuck in the wings. Again, optional.
When the oven is hot, place the chicken breast side up on a roasting tin/ cast iron skillet. Add the potatoes around the chicken and roast for for an hour.
Meanwhile melt the butter and add this to the reserved marinade.
Brush this mixture over the chicken and potatoes every 20 minutes.
Roast the chicken for an hour in total, or until the juices run clear when a skewer/knife is inserted down to the bone between the thigh and the leg.
Remove from the oven, cover with foil and let the chicken rest for 10 minutes.This helps it reabsorb moisture and stay succulent.
Carve and serve!