Lazy Housewife Roast Chicken Recipe

This is now one of my fail-safe recipes. I start on this at 5.30pm by turning the oven on to 220C, prep the ingredients, and put the dish in at 5.45pm when the oven is up to temperature. At 6.15pm I remove the lid and let the chicken continue to brown and crispen up for 15-20 minutes, hoping that husband gets home by 6.40pm or whenever to eat it with us.

The important thing is to cover for the first two-thirds of cooking to prevent meat from drying out.

I used to cook this in a roasting tray and cover with tin foil. I thought this was wasteful of tin foil. I tried buying a lid to fit the tray, but failed. Then while trying to bake sourdough bread discovered my husband's father's mother's enamel roasting tin that is rather ancient, hidden and forgotten in a dark corner in the cupboard.

It looks like this, and I am borrowing an image and link from a well-known retailer for which I am not paid: http://www.lakeland.co.uk/13262/Traditional-Enamel-Round-Roaster

It's a one-dish meal, which means that once the roaster goes in the oven I can sit back and relax.

What do you expect from this "Lazy Housewife"?

Ingredients (to feed three):

4 organic chicken thighs
3-4 organic potatoes (use more or less as required)
3 organic carrots (about 250g)
Olive oil [NB. I've switched to peanut oil.]
salt and pepper to taste

Method 
  1. Preheat oven to 220C (fan).
  2. Wash and chop carrots to about 1/2 inch discs. Put in roaster.
  3. Peel, wash and cut potatoes into chunks about 1and 1/2 inches. Add to roaster.
  4. Drizzle olive oil over carrots and tomatoes and season with salt and pepper. Put lid on, give it a good shake. The vegetables act as a draining rack for the meat.
  5. Lay out the chicken on top of the vegetables skin side up. Brush skin with olive oil, add salt and pepper to taste. Cover with lid and place in oven which should be up to temperature by now for 30 mins.
  6. Remove lid and return roaster to over for another 15 to 20 minutes. The skin should crispen up nicely. Make sure that it does not burn, unless you like it quite black.
If you have other fruit and vegetables handy or left over: tomatoes, sweet potatoes, peppers, lemons, even apples, you could throw these into the vegetable layer. The juices would make the dish even tastier.

You can also change the seasoning, adding honey and mustard or something else. Do note that if any sugar is used, the skin would turn black rather quickly.

On occasion we cook for a larger group and we found the larger oval roaster very useful.

Enjoy!

Comments

Bukan Saya said…
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Monday, 5 September 2016 at 10:48:00 BST
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