I spend an awful lot of my time thinking about food and recipes that I want to cook, which means a lot of time spent reading food blogs. When I saw this one on Amateur Gourmet, I just had to give it a go.
Adam says chicken is far nicer with the skin and bone on, and I whole-heartedly agree. It's also much cheaper to buy it that way. My local butcher sells skinless, boneless chicken breasts at £4.50/lb or slightly messily butchered portions for £2.75/lb - that starts to look like a no-brainer.
I've written before about the problem with cooking chicken: the flesh and the skin need different cooking techniques to give their best. Low and slow gives moist, tender flesh but the skin needs more heat to become nice and crispy. In the original recipe Adam fries the skin before cooking, which I think is the tastiest technique, but I'm under standing orders to keep WeightWatchers in mind so I went for an oven method instead.
I don't have a Meyer lemon tree in my garden, but I do have a jar of preserved lemon slices in the fridge. This would be nice with fresh lemon or orange, too. Simply lift the skin of the chicken and tuck a few slices underneath, then season the chicken with salt and pepper and add a sprinkling of thyme.
I cooked the chicken in the tagine today, just because I felt like it, but it doesn't really matter what implement you use - slow cooker, heavy pan with a lid, casserole - as long as the chicken is covered and cooking at a low temperature.
In the tagine, these two took an hour and a half with the gas ring on its lowest setting.
While that's cooking, roast some sprouts - they're dead easy as they don't need parboiling and they don't need long, just 15 minutes at 180C.
This chicken's cooked, but it doesn't look very appetising. We need to crisp that skin up a bit so transfer the chicken into a roasting tray. Add a bit more salt and a splash of olive oil. Move the sprouts to the bottom of the oven so they don't burn, put the chicken in and turn the oven up as high as it will go. This will crisp up the skin - it will need no more than ten minutes.
I never want to waste any flavour, so I poured the chicken juices from the bottom of the tagine over the sprouts - delicious.
I never want to waste any flavour, so I poured the chicken juices from the bottom of the tagine over the sprouts - delicious.
If you have a separate oven and grill, you can grill the chicken to crisp up the skin and avoid disturbing the sprouts - unfortunately mine's built into the oven. Serve with couscous.
These bad boys were far too much for the Manicure Maniac and me, but fortunately we have a very efficient machine for getting rid of leftover chicken. It looks like this.
Financial verdict
The real saving here is the choice of chicken cut. In butchers and in supermarkets, chicken is cheaper and tastier with the skin and bone on!
The skinny
Lift the chicken skin and slide lemon slices underneath
Season with salt, pepper and thyme
Cook low and slow for an hour and a half
Roast sprouts
Prepare couscous
Finish off the chicken skin with a 10-minute blast at 250C
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