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Roast dinners need not only be for Sundays, when the day is long and you have lots of time to spend waiting for something to cook! By using chicken thighs on the bone, you get all the flavour of a whole roast chicken in only a fraction of the time, and with minimal effort. Besides parboiling the potatoes first, everything is placed in the one pan and cooked together, leaving you with wonderfully flavoured chicken and potatoes which have been roasting with the tomatoes and aromatics.
I don’t always stick to this combination though, sometimes I’ll add fennel and use chickpeas instead of potatoes, different herbs or I might even marinate the chicken. It just depends on my mood and what I have in the fridge and cupboard. Vegetables that are usually suited to being roasted will work so let your mid-week creativity flow (or stick to my recipe for guaranteed success)!
I’ve made this one in a beautiful pan, which can be brought straight from the oven to the table for serving. It can all be cooked on large trays instead though, which makes for the easiest dinner when feeding a crowd. If you want to get really organised too, you can assemble everything hours ahead, store it in the fridge, then bring it back to room temperature just before roasting!
Ingredients (serves 4-6)
600g waxy potatoes such as kipfler or nicola
1kg chicken thighs, bone in, skin on
1 lemon
1 bulb of garlic, halved horizontally
Handful each of oregano and thyme, plus extra to garnish
60ml white wine
Extra virgin olive oil, for drizzling
1 tbsp unsalted butter
Sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
50g mixed olives
250g cherry tomatoes
Method
Preheat oven to 200C.
Parboil potatoes then cut into halves or quarters, if large.
Arrange the chicken, skin side up, and potatoes in a large pan or roasting tray – something not too deep is ideal to allow the chicken to become nice and golden.
Peel strips from the lemon and add to the pan along with the garlic. Scatter over the herbs, tucking them in and amongst the chicken and potatoes so they don’t burn easily.
Cut the lemon in half and squeeze over the juice and pour in the wine. Drizzle over plenty of olive oil and dot the chicken with butter. Season generously with sea salt and pepper.
Roast in the oven for 20 minutes. Add the olive and cherry tomatoes and continue cooking for a further 20 minutes or until the chicken is golden and the tomatoes have blistered.
Top with extra herbs and serve.
