Pot Roasted Chicken With Garlic and Rosemary - Manu's Chicken

I'm an avid watcher of reality TV cooking programmes - currently My Kitchen Rules where Manu Feildel is one of the judges. His catch cry is 'it need more sauce' and I have to agree! I love really rich sauces with dishes.

This recipe looked pretty easy and perfect for a cold winter evening.
I loved the sauce (...and the rest of the dish). It was really intense and garlicky.
I served it with smashed potatoes - also really garlicky!






Pot Roasted Chicken With Garlic and Rosemary - Manu's Chicken

Ingredients
1 tablespoon plain flour
2 teaspoons of sweet paprika
4 chicken marylands (leg and thigh portion)
1 1/2 tablespoons of olive oil
12 cloves of garlic, unpeeled
4 sprigs of rosemary
1/2 cup of white wine
1 1/2 cups of chicken stock
50 grams of butter
roast potatoes to serve

Mix together
flour and paprika with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste, then coat the chicken.
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celsius.
Heat an enamelled cast iron casserole dish over a med-high heat then add the olive oil. Fry the chicken, skin side down, for about 4-5 minutes or until golden brown, then turn and cook for another 4-5 minutes till golden brown.
Add the garlic, rosemary and wine, bring to the boil, then transfer to the oven to cook for 45 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through..
Transfer to the chicken , garlic and rosemary to a plate and cover with foil to keep warm.
Place the casserole over a high heat and simmer the sauce for about 7 minutes or until reduced by half to a sauce consistency.
Whisk in the butter, then taste and season if desired.
Serve the chicken with the sauce, peeled garlic cloves and roast potatoes.

Chicken Potato Top Pie - Recipe

I've been making this pie (or versions of it) for years. I didn't even consider posting it until a friend that visited this afternoon said 'I'd make that', so here it is.

The original recipe had a pastry topping. I started putting potato on top as a 'lower fat' option, but suspect that the mashed potato I make for it now is probably as bad as pastry!

The pictured pie has leeks and mushrooms in it but I also make it with celery and broccoli. I've made it with corn, carrots..pretty much whatever is in the fridge. My aim is usually to include as much vegetable as possible, so I can get away with not doing too much to go with it.

I never make this quite the same and trying to get quantities for someone else to make was a bit of a challenge. I like quite chunky bits of chicken and lots of sauce in it.

I pretty much always do a huge recipe and freeze half for a night when I want a reasonable meal but am really busy.

(If you plan to freeze it don't use mushrooms as they are odd when frozen and reheated)

(If you are planning on freezing half, double most of the measurements below)

This is also the meal I make to take to people who have just had babies, are sick or are having a hard time because it is so easy to either reheat or freeze.

Chicken and Potato Top Pie

Potatoes - peeled and chopped into large chunks

butter

garlic salt

grated tasty cheese

milk

Chicken (thighs are best because they don't dry out) - about 750g

oil - 1 tbs

60gm butter

2 cloves of garlic (chopped finely)

2 stalks of celery (and/or 2 leeks, maybe mushrooms...)

1 onion chopped

1/4 cup flour (you may need to stir in a bit more if it is too runny)

1-2 cups chicken stock (homemade is best!)

1 cup milk

1 tsp finely chopped rosemary (this is really important)

1 tsp finely chopped parsley

Potato Top

Peel potatoes and start cooking in salted water then going on with the pie filling steps below.

When cooked, drain water and mash with butter, garlic salt, cheese and a little milk to get it to a creamy consistency.

Pie Filling

Brown chicken in oil, then take out of pan and set aside.

Melt butter in frying pan and cook vegetables till soft.

Stir in flour and cook for a few minutes.

Remove from the heat and slowly stir in stock and milk. Bring back to the boil and simmer for a few minutes.

Stir in chicken and herbs. Season if necessary - this will depend on how salty your stock was).

Spoon pie filling into a deep dish. This recipe bubbles up and over the top of the dish if the potato topping is too near the top...no matter how many times I make this dish I get caught out with an oven that needs cleaning afterwards.

Topping

Spoon the potato over the top being careful not to push it down into the pie mixture.

Grate cheese over the top.

Bake at about 200 C for abut 30 minutes - until bubbling and the topping started to go golden.

If you are freezing it, you don't need to bake until you are ready to use it.

If baking from frozen allow about 40-50 minutes.

Lemon Chicken with Potatoes & Rosemary

I'm always on the look out for a really tasty meal that can have a significant amount of the preparation completed the night before. I'm often home quite late and with a little person in the house we eat early so her night time routine can be completed in time to get her to bed by 7pm.

I often cook the potato first (the day before in this case), then cook the chicken 30 minutes before it is required.

This recipe is really easy and really nice. It can easily be increased or decreased to suit the number you are cooking for.

The lemon is fantastic on the chicken and then makes the potatoes under it crispy and sticky and lemony.

When I made it tonight (or prepared last night to be exact) I used parsnip as well with the potatoes and considered using yams too.

Like many of the recipes I am posting, this is another one that I make over and over, having the recipe at hand in a digital format will be great. This one really doesn't need a recipe though, I often just make something along these lines and it is always successful.

This is an Annabel Langbein recipe from her book The Best Of Annabel Langbein, Great food for busy lives.

Baked Lemon Chicken with Potatoes and Rosemary

Small potatoes, scrubbed and halved (enough to feed number of people you are cooking for)

1 large red onion, cut in wedges

1 red pepper, seeded and cut into small chunks (I often use more)

2 tbsp oil

2 cloves garlic, crushed (I use more and just chop them roughly)

1 tsp chopped rosemary leaves

salt and pepper

chicken quarters/drum sticks...with bone in (enough to feed number of people you are cooking for)

juice of 2 lemons, (I use the zest too)

Preheat oven to 200 degrees C.

Choose a baking dish that will fit the chicken in a single layer.

Place potatoes, onions and peppers in dish with oil, garlic and rosemary. Mix to combine evenly. Season with salt and pepper and bake for 30 minutes.

Place chicken skin side up on top of vegetables, season with more salt.

Sprinkle zest over chicken and squeeze juice of lemon over chicken.

Bake a further 25-30 minutes or until the chicken is golden and cooked through.

Focaccia Bread - My Recipe

When we are going somewhere for a meal or event and I ask "what I can bring?", the answer is usually the same...focaccia bread. I'm not sure I want to have this as my 'signature dish' but I have to admit it is a pretty easy request to fulfill and it always gets gobbled fast.

I make bread at least once a week, often more, and yes, I use a bread maker. The purist in me sometimes thinks I should be kneading it by hand but the realist in me knows I don't have time!

There are a couple of things I have learned through trial and error when making bread (and there have been some pretty major errors/disasters), is to make the dough in the bread maker and then let it rise in a slightly warm oven. The rising needs several hours...bread making needs around 6 hours from start to finish. A long time but minimal effort is needed in this time.

The secret to my focaccia bread is to put a frozen cube of home made pesto (this recipe will come next summer when my basil is growing again) into the bread mixture at the start. Again not authentic Italian Focaccia, but really yummy.

Focaccia Bread

1 1/2 cups of warm water

2 tablespoons of olive oil

4 1/4 cups of bread flour (high grade)

2 tsp of salt

2 tsp of sugar
2 tsp of yeast

1 cube of frozen pesto (or Italian Herb Mix)

Fresh rosemary, thyme and flaky sea salt

Optional: cherry tomatoes or olives

Put wet ingredients in first, followed by dry and pesto.

Set bread maker to 'dough setting'

Once dough is made, spread on oven tray lined with baking paper and sprinkled with flour in a large flat oval shape and leave to rise in a slightly warm oven for a few hours (or over night).

Once it has risen, rub gently with more olive oil, sprinkle with fresh rosemary and thyme and a lot of flaky sea salt. Press cherry tomatoes or olives gently into dough to decorate.

Bake for about 20 minutes at 200 degrees.

The smell in the house when this is cooking is amazing. The fresh herbs make a huge difference.

The biggest challenge is to keep it uneaten if we are taking it somewhere!