One of the best pieces of cooking advice that I ever received was to find 2-3 recipes that I LOVED, learn them by heart and then make them often and shamelessly. Nigel Slater’s Roasted Chicken with Lemon & Basil has become one of those recipes for me. There aren’t many recipes in his Real Food cookbook that I don’t love but the roasted chicken is just so easy and tastes so fabulous that it has made its way onto my special list of memorized favorites.
We have made a couple batches in the last week, one for dinner with friends, the other for lunches and leftovers. Yesterday’s creation – a light chicken salad using the veggies I had on hand. Amazingly, the chicken tasted just as good a day later as it did coming straight out of the oven.
Next time, you are looking for a deliciously simple chicken recipe, give this lemon & basil option a try. And be sure to make enough for leftovers. Your lunchbox will thank you.
Ingredients
olive oil
2-3 garlic cloves
1-2 lemons
handful of basil leaves
1 cup chicken broth or dry white wine
sea salt & freshly ground pepper
Steps:
- Preheat your oven to 390 degrees.
- Rinse & pat dry your chicken before adding it to a large roasting pan. Season it with salt & pepper. Drizzle a generous amount of olive oil over the chicken – enough so that it starts to pool in the bottom of the pan. Cut your lemons in half, squeeze them over the chicken and then add what remains of the lemons to the pan. Smash your garlic with skins on and add to the pan as well.
- Roast for 30 minutes. Remove the pan to add the basil. Toss gently with the chicken before returning the pan to the oven for another 10 minutes of roasting time.
- Remove the pan from the oven. Put it over a hot flame on the stove. Pour in the stock or wine, let it bubble for a minute or two before serving.
Serves 4
From Real Food by Nigel Slater (Fourth Estate Publishing).
