Spanish Roast Chicken

This dish is meant for a cheeky minimum fuss mid-week roast. In this recipe we go one stage further than spatchcocking the chicken – we cleave it in half. By chopping the chicken in half you cut the cooking time in half, so instead of the lengthy 1-2 hour cook it takes 40 minutes to an hour. Adding olives to the roast was a bit of experimental genius, salty sweet and crisp, 100% necessary in this recipe.  Oh and I am aware “Spanish Chicken” is a load of rubbish jargon for describing the use of paprika and olives, so sorry in advance.

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  What you need:

  • 1 free range whole chicken
  • A lemon
  • Sprigs of fresh thyme
  • Black olives
  • Cress
  • A good salad bag 
  • 1-2 tbsp of a nice sweet paprika 
  • 1 tbsp of chilli flakes 
  • A few cloves of garlic

  
  

  How to make it:
  

  1. As discussed we need to start by jointing the bird, hopefully pictures speak a thousand words and my pictures will guide you through this stage. If the pictures are no help I will summarise here what to do, and with any luck it will be in less than 1000 words. Put your biggest heaviest knife in the cavity of the bird to the right / left of the spine, put your weight on the knife and cut through the bone.  Repeat the process on the other side of the spine to remove it. Flip the bird over (so it’s skin side up) and spread it out on the board, push down on the breast down to break it (at this point we have spatchcocked the chicken). Flip the bird back over take your knife and cut down the centre of the bird, cutting it in half.
  2. Put the chicken in a high sided roasting tin, throw in garlic cloves which you have squashed using the back of your knife, a handful or two of de-stoned olives, a few sprigs of thyme, half a lemon which you have quartered up, sprinkle over the paprika with some seasoning and olive oil. Mix all the ingredients together in the roasting tin, but make sure the chicken halves are skin side up, with the breast being at the bottom. Placing the chicken in the tray like this ensures the breasts stay moist as all the juices run down to the breasts from the legs,  the legs are in the more direct heat which makes sure the breasts and thighs are all cooked at the same time. 
  3. Place the chicken in a pre-heated 180 ^oC oven for 40 minutes to 1 hour depending on the size of your bird. To check whether the chicken is cooked pierce the thickest part of the meat and see if the juices run clear, if they do it’s ready. Rest the meat for 15-20 minutes: this is so important as this prevents the meat from becoming dry when carved and also prevents it crumbling up when carved.
  4. Portion up the chicken and chop the cress into your salad.  Pour some of the resting juices over the salad and give it a squeeze of leftover fresh lemon juice and season to create your salad dressing.
     - serve with some rustic bread to mop up the leftover salad dressing-