Nigella Lawson's one-pan garlic chicken, flavoured with lemon and thyme, is described as 'gloriously easy' and melts in the mouth. The recipe serves four to six people, and leftovers can be eaten for up to three days.
One-pan convenience
One-pot dinners are super convenient as they require little attention and washing up. The recipe notes said: “This is one of those recipes you just can’t make once; that’s to say, after the first time, you’re hooked. It is gloriously easy: you just put everything in the roasting dish and leave it to cook in the oven, pervading the house with the summer scent of lemon and thyme—and, of course, mellow, almost honeyed garlic.
“I got the idea of it from those long-cooked French chicken casseroles with whole garlic cloves and just wanted to spritz it up with lemon.
Recipe details
The wonderful thing about it is that you can turn the lemon from being a flavouring to being a major player; left in chunks to cook slowly in the oven, they seem almost to caramelise, and you can eat them, skin, pith and all, their sour bitterness sweetened in the heat.”
Ingredients: One chicken, approximately 2.25kg, cut into 10 pieces; one bulb of garlic, separated into unpeeled cloves; two unwaxed lemons, cut into eight chunky pieces; one handful of fresh thyme; three tablespoons of olive oil; 150ml white wine; black pepper; one teaspoon of sea salt flakes.
Method
Start by preheating the oven to 160°C/140°C Fan before placing the chicken pieces in a roasting tin and adding the garlic cloves, lemon chunks, and thyme. Roughly pull the thyme leaves off the stalks, leaving some intact for strewing over later.
Add the oil and, using your hands, mix everything together, then spread the mixture out, making sure all the chicken pieces are skin-side up. Sprinkle over the white wine and grind on some pepper and sea salt flakes, then cover tightly with foil and put in the oven for two hours.
Remove the foil from the roasting tin, and turn the oven to 200°C/180°C Fan. Cook the uncovered chicken for another 30 to 45 minutes, by which time the skin on the meat will have turned golden brown, and the lemons will have begun to scorch and caramelise at the edges.
The recipe notes added: “I like to serve this as it is, straight from the roasting tin: so just strew with your remaining thyme and dole out.”
