members recipes

I discovered how to make the veggies both sweet and tangy entirely by accident, the red wine vinegar brings out the flavour of the spring onion really well.

Ingredients
For the chicken:
Whole chicken (about 2.5kg)
large handful of fresh basil, finely chopped
2 red onions, halved
2tbsp extra virgin olive oil
sea salt and black pepper to season

for the tangy veg:
half a medium-sized courgette, sliced into 1/2cm pieces
3 spring onions, roughly sliced
5-6 mushrooms, sliced
splash red wine vinegar
sea salt and black pepper
dash of chilli powder

for the gravy:
2tbsp flour
150ml chicken stock

Method
Prepare your chicken:
Mix the basil with the olive oile to make a paste then smother the chicken with it, season with sea salt and black pepper and rest for 20minutes. Pop your chicken in a roating tin with the halved onions, cover with foil, then cook it at 180C (fan oven) for 30mins per 0.5kg.

Ten minues before your chicken is ready, begin to prepare your vegetables (slicing veg is time consuming!)

After approx 2.5hrs (for a 2.5kg chicken), remove from the oven and check if the chicken is fully cooked by inserting a fork/skewer into the fattest part. If the juices run clear, the chicken is ready. Leave to rest on a wooden chooping board, covered with the foil while you make your gravy.

Gravy:

Discard the red onions and put the roasting tin on the hob on a high heat and scrape all the bits from the bottom. Add the flour and mix to dissolve, add your hot chicken stock and bring to the boil, mixing all the time, season to taste. Once it\'s nicely bubbling away and your happy with the flavour, empty the gravy into a jug through a sieve, and push down with a spoon to get all the flavours through.

Veggies:
Pop a griddle pan on a high heat and add all of your veg. Shake it about a bit and when it starts to brown, add a dash of red wine vinegar (about 1tsp) plus some chilli powder, sea salt and black pepper. Turn down the heat slightly and griddle them for a further 5 minutes, allowing the flavours to mix together.

Slice your chicken and pop on a plate with some veggies, adding some of the yummy gravy to further flavour the chicken, season further if you wish to.