LUCY POTTER rustles up a rustic one-pan dish ideal for an effortless meal

For this dish, I must give thanks to Nigella Lawson. In her book Forever Summer, she has a recipe for ‘slow-roasted garlic and lemon chicken’, which has become something of a classic at home.

This is a great dish to cook for a relaxed weekend meal. You can just pop it in the oven and forget about it for a few hours. Perhaps my favourite part is the fact that the slow-cooked lemons and garlic both become beautifully soft and sweet... meaning you can eat the whole lot!

To Nigella’s recipe, I have added fennel seeds to the chicken, red onion segments to the tray and parsley to the finished dish. You can also throw in some par-boiled potatoes to make an all-in-one meal. Serve with a simple green salad or vegetables of choice.

Ingredients:

serves 4 or 2 with leftovers

1 medium chicken, jointed into 6 pieces (or use pre-jointed chicken pieces)
2 whole lemons, cut into eighths
Cloves from ½ head of garlic, bruised
1 red onion, chopped into 6 wedges
1 heaped tsp fennel seeds
Small handful of fresh thyme
150ml white wine
Handful of fresh parsley, roughly chopped
Olive oil, freshly ground black pepper and flaky salt
[optional: par-boiled new potatoes]

Method:

Preheat oven to 160c.

Make sure the chicken pieces are clean and dry, then stab a few times with a sharp knife.

Massage in light olive oil and lemon juice, and season lightly with salt and pepper. Finely chop half the thyme then scatter over the chicken along with the fennel seeds.

Put in a roasting dish with the garlic cloves, lemon chunks and red onion segments. Pop in half the remaining thyme sprigs and drizzle in the white wine. Cover with foil and bake for two hours.

Now uncover the tray (adding par-boiled potatoes if you like) and turn the temperature up to 200c. Roast for a further 30-45 minutes, or until golden.

Before serving, sprinkle over the remaining thyme leaves and all the parsley. Generously scatter over some crunchy sea salt and a few grinds of black pepper.

Savour more delicious recipes from Lucy online at her food blog: citrusandherbs.blogspot.com