Another roast chicken idea

Well todays effort seemed successful. At the moment I am trying to find as many things I can think of to do with a whole chicken. I make it all up as I go so writing it here also gives me something to refer to later on if I can't remember what I did.

Todays chicken was similar to the last one in regards to initial prep.

Bone the chicken and place the legs (in 1 piece or 2) and breast in your baking paper lined roasting pan. I gave the wings to my dogs today but you can throw them in too or use them in your stock later.

Pour on some garlic oil. If you don't have garlic oil just use some normal light olive oil and add a couple of chopped cloves to the pan.

Slice up an onion and loosely spread it over the top of the chicken. A little salt, pepper, paprika and 2 stock cubes crumbled over to season and then pour over a whole tin of diced, peeled tomatos. I do recommend the tinned tomatos for this for the fluid content, ease and cost but if you wanted to use fresh tomatos you can finely chop 4 or 5 and add a bit of water or tomato juice.

And that is the chicken done! As last time simply cover with some alluminium foil and put it in a pre-heated fan forced oven for about 25 - 30 minutes at 200 degrees, uncover and bake for a further 30 or so minutes. Check that it's done as it may need a little more time at the end. This was a 1.6kg chicken which I purchased from Aldi for $7.20.

This evening I also cooked my potatos with the chicken which is optional. I quartered the potatos and just spread them over the top of the chicken. I decided to leave the skin on because I was feeling lazy and I often prefer potatos with skins anyway which are also healthier.

These potatos were fairly crisp on the outside but not crunchy and really soft on the inside. No fat actually touches the potatos so they are a much healthier version of roasted potatos than one gets when roasting with chicken normally.

Serving:

This evening I simply spooned some of the tomato, onion and juice over the chicken and served with the potatos and salad.

If you wanted to though you could strain the liquid and reduce it some more turning it into a pretty interesting gravy or even a cream sauce would work nicely I think. I saved the left overs and might play with it tomorrow but because you've got the flavours from the chicken, tomato, onion and seasoning you'd not need to do much to it and the taste I thought was quite good.

This meal could serve up to 8 people depending on the portion size. I actually struggled to get through the whole chicken breast so one could easily slice each breast in half creating 4 portions and do the same with the legs. One could easily offer smaller chicken portions and make up a great filling and healthy meal served with other vegetables, salad and a slice of bread to mop up the juices from your plate. Rice would also work as a substitute for the potatos.