Chicken roasted with rosemary, lemon and garlic. New potatoes roasted in the chicken juices and served with green beans and a sauce made from the chicken juices.
The sauce for this was out of necessity rather than design as when I went to make my usual gravy, I'd run out of gravy granules. Yes I am that person who uses gravy granules. They work! But in the absence of these I had to get creative.
This meal is also cheap as chips and will easily leave leftovers for later in the week.
Ingredients:
For the chicken and potatoes:
Medium chicken (mine was 1.65kg)
A lemon quartered
A bulb of garlic broken up into cloves but with the skins left on
A few sprigs of fresh rosemary
50g butter cut into 3 chunks
1tbsp olive oil
1 glass of white wine (I used a mini bottle I'd received as a gift a while ago)
New potatoes
Green beans
For the sauce:
2tbsp plain flour
1/2 cup milk
Salt and pepper
Sprig of fresh rosemary finely chopped
Method:
1) preheat oven to 175*C
2) stuff chicken cavity with: 1/3 of the butter, a few cloves of garlic, a couple of sprigs of rosemary and the quartered lemon.
3) put the chicken in a suitable roasting dish and surround it with the new potatoes
4) press the other 2 chunks of butter onto the breasts and then scatter the remaining garlic cloves over the potatoes along with the rest of the rosemary (remember to keep a bit back for the sauce)
5) drizzle over the olive oil and pour over the wine
6) tent with foil
7) cook covered for 45 mins, then remove the foil and cook for a further 30 mins per kilo
8) while its cooking prep the beans and put them in a pan of boiling salted water and bring to a boil then simmer for 10-15 mins until they're just tender
9) once the chicken is cooked remove it and the potatoes to a serving dish and loosely tent with foil to rest
10) pour the chicken juices into a jug through a sieve to remove the garlic and rosemary sprigs
11) the oil/butter should float to the top
12) to make the sauce pour 2-3tbsp of the oil/butter from the jug into a saucepan and put on a medium to high heat
13) whisk in the flour and cook for a couple of minutes until the flour is cooked out
14) gradually add the remaining contents of the jug whisking at all times
15) pop open the garlic cloves and mash them in a bowl and add the mashed garlic to the sauce
16) add the milk, seasoning and finely chopped rosemary and stir together, decant into a sauce boat
17) drain the beans and put them on a serving dish
18) serve immediately
