Cookbook Review Recipe - Spanish Roast Chicken

Jamie Oliver calls this "a cracker of a dish to serve at home...it will really get your taste buds going." Ummm...check, check and check. I have probably cooked this dish 4 times in the last few months, I just can't get enough.

This is an easy roasted chicken dinner with a WOW factor.

Recipe from Jamie's Dinners: The Essential Family Cookbook
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Serves 4

2 lbs potatoes, peeled and cut into 1 inch cubes
3 lb whole chicken
sea salt and fresh ground pepper
11 oz hot or mild Spanish chorizo, sliced on angle
olive oil

Gremolata:
2 lemons, zested
1/4 cup fresh parsley, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Peel and cut potatoes and place them in a medium sized pot and cover them with cold water. Turn heat to high and boil for 5 minutes, then drain.

Zest the lemons and place all zest into a small bowl (to be used later). Cut one of the zested lemons in half and stuff it inside the whole chicken. Remove the parsley leaves from the stalks and put the stalks inside the chicken as well. In a 9 x 13 roasting pan, dump in the boiled and drained potatoes and place the chicken on top. Drizzle the chicken and potatoes with a bit of olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Place in the oven for about an hour (or until the chicken reaches an internal temperature of 170 degrees). With 20 minutes left in cooking time, sprinkled the sliced chorizo sausage over the potatoes and chicken to finish cooking.

While the chicken is roasting, you can quickly make the gremolata. Take the small bowl of lemon zest and add the chopped parsley to it. Use a rasp or finely chop the garlic and stir together with the lemon and parsley. Season with salt and pepper.

When chicken is done roasting, remove from the oven and let it rest covered in foil for 10-15 minutes to let the juices redistribute. When it has rested, carve the chicken. To serve, pile some of the chorizo and potatoes onto a plate, add the chicken and scoop out any juices that have accumulated in the pan (they are amazing!) Top the chicken and potatoes with a bit of gremolata for an incredible hit of fresh flavor.

Click here for printable version of Spanish Roast Chicken

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THE RESULTS?
Wow. Wow Wow WOWWWW! The smokey paprika in the chorizo really impregnates the chicken and potatoes with flavor. My favorite part has got to be the gremolata that hits the hot chicken and fills up your nose with fantastic smells and gives you a fresh punch as you eat. Hands down my favorite way to roast a chicken.

As much as I LOVE the flavors of this dish, it is an AWFULLY written recipe. The recipe as in the cookbook has listed a beaten egg in the ingredients and then no directions for when to use it. Umm?? Also if you check his website this recipe is also posted, and it's obvious that he tried to fix the terrible instructions. The egg is no longer listed, but there's a big discrepancy with "greaseproof paper". The recipe in the cookbook says to wet some greaseproof paper and cover the whole chicken, yet the website says that it goes underneath. I'm assuming it's purpose is to make clean up easy. Since I have made this recipe quite a few times, I have used both greaseproof paper (or parchment paper) underneath my chicken and potatoes and I've also not used it. I find that my potatoes don't get as nice of a crispy coating on the outside using the paper, so I chose to forgo it here. I've also simplified the recipe slightly and made the directions much more clear.

My other issue with Jamie's recipe is that he wants you to add the sliced chorizo right at the very beginning of roasting time....as in, it's in the oven for over an hour. That beautiful chorizo turns to bits of charred jerky. Hence, I add my chorizo in the last 20 minutes. So Jamie scores huge points for flavor..... minus 10 points for recipe instructions.

Meal Ideas: