Peri Peri Chicken With Portugese Style Potatoes
What you'll need to get:
Serves 6
- 1 Large Free Range Chicken, cut into 8-10 portions, leaving the meat mostly on the bone.
- 1 Kg of Main Crop Potatoes, red or white suitable for roasting. Peeled.
- 1-2 teaspoons of dried Peri Peri spice.
- 1 tablespoon of LURPAK slightly salted butter.
- 2 cloves of garlic finely sliced.
- 2 smaller red or white onions cut into quarters.
- 200ml of Dry white house wine.
- Chicken stock. You can use a chicken stock cube and 200ml of water alternatively you can make your own. *See note below.
- 75ml Virgin Olive Oil.
- Bay leafs (optional)
What you need to do:
Pre–heat the oven to 180°C. Rub the chicken portions with the butter on the upper side of the meat. Place the chicken on a large roasting tray - you may need two as the food should not be layered, but can be squashed tightly together. Chop the peeled potatoes into approximately 4 quarters, smaller than you would for regular roast potatoes, as they need to cook more quickly.
Add the potatoes to the roasting pan, dotting the garlic and onions around the dish. Add the white wine and chicken stock, distributing it over the potatoes and chicken. Now drizzle over the olive oil so that it also coats the chicken and potatoes.
Sprinkle the Peri Peri over the chicken (and potatoes if you wish). If you are not used to the heat of this spice just use a few pinches to start with. You can also leave some of the chicken and potatoes less covered with the Peri Peri for younger children or people who don't like too strong a spice flavour. Add salt and Pepper to taste. You could also add 3 bays leaves to the dish if you like the flavour.
Roast the chicken for 50 minutes to 1 hour, basing and turning occasionally to keep everything moist. Then check the chicken with a skewer to see if the juice from the chicken runs clear.
*You can make a great chicken stock from: 300ml of water, one peeled carrot, 1 stick of celery and any of the surplus bones from the chicken when it was carved originally. This is brought to the boil and simmered for 20 minutes to reduce and strained.
And another thing...
If you can, use a quality free range chicken. It will make a big difference to the taste. The recipe feeds quite a few people so you don't need to splash out on a massive chicken! The best wines to serve with this dish would be a Red Dâo - a full bodied Portuguese red wine which would be good to serve in the evening. For lunch with friends, a Portuguese sparking rosé is perfect.