After my amuse-bouche of pork scratchings, thought I’d better make sure I had some proper dinner. Fortunately I’d planned ahead and thawed some chicken overnight, so ready to roll. I prefer to use chicken thigh for my cooking as it’s tastier and more forgiving than breast meat if you slightly overcook, plus it’s cheaper especially if you dismantle a whole chicken yourself.(bones go into a big, zip-lock bag in the freezer until there’s enough to do a batch of stock)
Preheat oven to 220°c (adjust if you have fan assist or know your oven temp is dodgy). Put 1 tblsp cooking fat of choice (I use coconut oil but duck fat is even better) onto a baking sheet – don’t use a high-sided roasting tin here or it will just steam – and pop in the oven to melt. Finely chop 3 cloves garlic and add to the fat, along with the grated zest of ½ lemon,1 tsp dried rosemary and some S+P. Toss in 500g diced thigh meat (about 4 large skinless, boned thighs) and combine well with the liquid. Roast in oven 20mins. After 20mins take it out of the oven – it should be quite golden and sticky now – and pour over the juice of ½ lemon (see, it didn’t go to waste) and 50ml chicken stock. Stir well. TURN OFF THE OVEN. Put the tray back in and leave it alone for 5mins. In this time the juice and stock will combine with the sticky bit on the tray and make the most delicious gravy 🙂
Serve with steamed green – I had pak choi so used that. Make sure you work the gravy around the tray to pick up all the marmitey goodness, before pouring over the green. Yum 😛