Easy Baked Chicken with Melt in the Mouth Potatoes

A recipe for Chicken with Sherry and Rosemary was tucked in our veg box last week.  I would happily give you the link but I can't find it. As it was I didn't have all the ingredients, namely sherry and saffron for the potatoes.  So instead I decided to do what I do best - adapt to what I have in.

The recipe below proved to be a great find.  The kids love this mini mid week roast chicken anyway and the potatoes soaked in all the wine and chicken juices were a tasty alternative to boiled potatoes.  Since cooking this last night a number of future variations have been running through my head.  Always with garlic, I can't wait to try:-

• About 10cm chorizo, cubed or 100g bacon
• Cider instead of wine & maybe a tablespoon of wholegrain mustard
• Thai - Juice and zest of 2 lemons, 2 tablespoons fish sauce, water to top up to 200ml, & 1 teaspoon thai curry paste
• Greek/Italian - Juice and zest of 1 lemons, white wine to top up to 200ml, 1 teaspoon oregano, handful black olives, & 1 tablespoon capers (optional)
• Moroccan - Juice and zest of 1 lemons, water to top up to 200ml, 1 teaspoon cumin seeds, & 1 teaspoon harissa paste
• Indian - 1 tin chopped tomatoes & 1 tablespoon curry paste
• Pork chops instead of chicken

Easy Baked Chicken with Melt in the Mouth Potatoes
Serves 4

8 chicken thighs
900g potatoes
2 garlic cloves
6 sprigs of rosemary
4 bay leaves
1/2 tsp sweet paprika
200ml white wine
Pepper & salt
1tbsp olive oil

Preheat oven to 180C.  Peel and thickly slice the potatoes.  Place in a high sided oven dish.  Add the finely chopped garlic and all the other ingredients apart from the wine.  Season and toss the potatoes and chicken with your hands to give everything a good coating in all the flavourings.  Pick the chicken pieces out and lay them on top skin side up.  Bake for 45-60 minutes.  The original recipe called for the chicken to be browned beforehand, but to make this quicker to prepare and have less washing up I decided not to do this.  Maybe because of this it took longer than the prescribed 45 minutes to brown, so do feel free to pop it under a hot grill for a minutes rather than give it the extra time in the oven.

This was very quick to prepare in advance, and as my chicken thighs were still slightly frozen inside at lunch time, I just sat them on top and put the whole dish in the cold oven and used the timer to turn out whilst I was out on the school run later in the day.