Spicy herbed chicken with beetroot, fennel and orange salad

Ingredients:

A whole corn fed chicken cut into quarters and skinned

1 coriander bunch

1/2 mint bunch

2 small red onions

6-7 large garlic cloves

2 thumb size ginger pieces

2 red chillies

2 tbsp Natural yogurt

Olive oil

2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp black pepper

1 tsp ground cumin

Juice of 1 lemon

For the salad:

4 beetroots, peeled and cut into eighths

Half a fennel bulb

1 med orange

Juice of half a medium orange

Few sprigs fresh dill

Feta cheese

Handful of roughly chopped walnuts

This recipes serves two portions

Firstly, the chicken. I get mine from the butchers and ask them to cut it into quarters and remove the skin, however if you prefer to keep the skin on then that is fine too. Wash the chicken and cut slits into the meatier parts to allow the marinade to soak through.

Pick the leaves off the coriander and mint, wash and drain. Place both the red onions, garlic cloves, ginger, chillies, coriander and mint into a chopper and whizz them up until they resemble a pasty like texture.

Transfer to a bowl, add the salt, cumin, pepper, lemon, yogurt and a few glugs of olive oil.

Using your hands, massage all of the marinade into the chicken and the slits you created making sure it is completely covered. If the skin is left on make sure you massage marinade under the skin too. Cover the bowl with cling film and leave in the fridge for a couple of overs or overnight.

Remove the chicken from the fridge 30 minutes before placing in the oven to allow it to warm to room temperature.

Turn the oven on to 220 degrees. Grease and line a baking tray and place the chicken quarters onto the tray. Keep them slightly apart which will stop juices running, you want the chicken to be dry and slightly charred when serving. It may seem like there is too much marinade but coat the excess on top of the chicken.

Place the chicken in the oven – this will take around 45 minutes to cook (depending on the strength of your oven).

Check the chicken is piping hot before serving and if you unsure on whether it is cooked poke a sharpe knife into the thickest part of the meat – if the juices run clear it is ready.

Remove from the oven and let stand for 10 minutes before serving.

For the salad

Turn the oven on to 200 degrees. Trim, peel and cut the beetroot into eighths. Place in a non stick baking tray and drizzle olive oil, a sprinkle of salt and the juice of the orange. This is ready to go in the oven.

The beetroot should cook in around 30minutes. Toss it half way through cooking, once it starts to caramelise and is tender to poke with a fork it is ready to remove from the oven.

Whilst the beetroot is cooking peel and segment the orange and cut the segment lengthways and then in half.

Slice the fennel into thin slices and pick and wash the dill leaves.

Remove the beetroot and transfer into a salad bowl, toss the orange in along with the walnuts, crumbled feta cheese, fennel slices and dill leaves. Serve the salad warm with the chicken.

You can make this meal as filling or as light as you want – you can add roasted new potatoes to the salad or serve with some warm naan bread.