Honey Chicken & Lemon Roast
There is nothing more reassuring during a stressful work day than knowing your dinner is resting idly in the plastic comfort of a ziplock bag in the icy coolness of your freezer. Now I know that may sound like a ‘round the bushes’ way of glorifying chucking a bunch of ingredients and a chicken into a plastic bag, but I’m struggling to find words that sums up the simple assurance that a recipe like this gives me when the thought of actually cooking when I get home makes me want to hibernate.
A ziplock bag is a lazy cook’s lifeline, just take solace in that fact and the recipe I’ll outline for you here is quite shameless. It’s not even a recipe so I can’t believe I even have the nerve to anoint it as such, but there we go. Believe me when I say all you will be required to do is some light chopping and some throwing. Well… not actually throwing because there’s a lot of jars in fridges and you don’t want the dreaded beetroot spill, but you get the general jist.
Drop your preferred chicken cuts into a ziplock bag. Then add some honey, some lemon juice, some Mustard Powder, some sea salt (Maldon is always the champ) and then some black pepper. Bruise some garlic – and by this I mean just peel the purple skin from the clove thing and press the back of your knife against it until you hear a nice crack – and drop that in too. Zip your bag up and smooosh everything around so that the chicken is coated nicely and throw it in the fridge overnight.
SIDE NOTE – for hot damn sake, don’t be like me and please make sure the bag is zipped tight before you smoosh. I’ve been drenched in all sorts of marinades before due to reckless zip locking. It’s an issue.
When you’re ready to cook, preheat the oven to 200C. Take a roasting dish and add a little flavourless oil to coat the bottom. Chop up some potatoes (small cubes) and scatter them in, add a little salt and then squeeze over some more lemon juice. Drop your marinated chicken cuts on top and some rosemary and slide into the oven for 45 minutes.
When the pan comes out, everything should have a sweet and sticky glaze and when served alongside some simple peppery rocket can really give you something to look forward too throughout the day. I’m also not at all mortified to say that I have sopped up the remains of this pan with some sourdough bread but I’m an animal, please feel free to utilise some human restraint.
MIKEY AND THE KITCHEN. 