Let’s face it… roast chicken is always good. But sometimes I fancy doing something a little more interesting than just shoving a lemon inside – It’s nice and simple, but it’s not very dignified for the poor bird! We had friends over yesterday, and decided to cook a chicken, and I was in the mood for something a little different…

This is my absolute favourite more ‘exotic’ recipe to elevate the humble roast chicken. It’s not too hot, but very flavoursome, and it works surprisingly well in the summer with a good salad.

It’s from Madhur Jaffrey’s Ultimate Curry Bible, (which, of the many curry cookbooks I’ve tried, is absolutely the best!), slightly tweaked. The biggest faff is skinning the chicken. I’m getting quicker at this. The first time took me the best part of 40 minutes! This time I did two chickens in 16 minutes. I’ve found it’s easiest to slice the skin at the base, peel it over the sides, and then work up the legs. Then do the same at the breasts, and work down, meeting halfway. The legs and wings are the hardest bits. I keep tugging tentatively at the skin, in fear that it’s going to ping off and slap me in the eye! I tend to just leave the wings, because, let’s face it, when it comes to serving up, I’m going to eat those before anyone else gets a look in anyway!

Here’s the recipe for one bird… we doubled it and did two on this occasion. If you do that, you’ll need to significantly increase the cooking time: we went for 90 mins covered and 20 mins uncovered.

Ingredients

1 chicken, approx. 1 ¾ kg, skinned.
4 tbsp. lemon juice (though this did make the paste a little sloppy. In future I think I’d consider reducing this to about 2 ½ tbsp)
5cm fresh ginger, peeled and chopped
3 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
3 fresh, hot, green chillies, chopped (I tend to use whatever colour chillies I have around, a mixture of red and green this time. I deseeded half of the chillies, as not all our guests would appreciate the burn!)
1 tsp. salt
2 tbsp. olive oil
1 tsp. ground cumin (I always increase this, because I personally love the strong flavour of cumin. I usually go for about 1 ½ tsp.)
2 tsp. ground coriander (Likewise, if you up the cumin, increase the coriander too, to balance it out)
½ tsp. chilli powder
Ground pepper

Method

Peel the chicken, and make two deep, diagonal slits in each breast, going right down to the bone. Make two deep slashes in the thighs and drumsticks as well. Line a roasting dish with a large sheet of foil, large enough to encase the chicken. Place the chicken (breast up) on the foil.

Combine the lemon juice, ginger, garlic, chillies, salt, olive oil, cumin and coriander , and blend until you have a paste. Rub it into the chicken, working it into the slits. Leave to marinate for at least 30 minutes.

Heat the oven to 200°C / Gas Mark 6.

Dust the top of the chicken with the chilli powder and black pepper. Bring up the foil over the top, crimp it together to cover the chicken in a little shiny coffin, then cook for 1 hour. After the hour, baste the chicken, and then bake it uncovered for another 15 minutes, basting it again every 5 minutes.

Serve however you want really… We went for a leafy salad with feta and pine nuts, roasted jersey royals, and roasted shallots. Heavenly!