Whole Roast Masala Chicken

I love my roast dinners. Roast chicken is one of my favourite. This is a scrummy alternative to the normal way of doing a chicken.  I saw it on TV one day wrote the recipe down and have cooked it many times and is a hit with everyone I have given it to.

Its spicy and juicy but you don’t baste it with anything apart from the juices and the marinade, no butter or oil used. Super delicious.

Ingredients

Marinade:

4tbsp lemon juice
3 hot green chillies
2 tbsp finely chopped ginger
2 tbsp chopped garlic
1tsp salt
1 tsp ground coriander
1tsp garam masala

Chicken:
1 whole chicken
1/2 tsp chilli powder
1/2 tsp ground black pepper

Potatoes:
5 medium potatos
3/4 tsp salt
3/4 tsp black pepper
1tsp ground corriander
1tsp cumin
1/2 tsp tumeric
1 tsp chilli powder
Spray oil

Preheat oven to 200 degrees.

1. Skin your chicken. This is very easy and I find if I use a piece of kitchen paper I can get a better grip on the skin to pull it off. Cut the, what I call ankles off and pull the ligaments out of the legs. Once skinned make some deep cuts into the breast and legs.

2. Blend the marinade ingredients together, and rub the all marinade into the chicken. Sprinkle with the pepper and chilli powder over then wrap the chicken up in the foil so completely sealed and chill for 30 mins.

3. Put it in the oven and bake for 1 hour. Then take out and unwrap the foil. Cook for a further 20 mins basting 2 or 3 times until the chicken is .

4. Take it out of the oven wrap the foil back round it and put aside to rest.

Now the potatoes:
Wack the oven up really hot.

1. Peel and cut the potatoes into the size you like them. Par boil them for 10 minutes. Strain them.

2. Put them in a bowl and mix them with the salt and pepper and spray with a the oil.  Put them in the baking tray. Roast at the top of the oven for 20 minutes.

3. Mix the spices in a bowl, take the potatoes out of the oven and toss them in the spices, put them back in the tray and cook until crispy.

Serve with whatever veggies you fancy.

Instead of gravy pour the juices from the pan the chicken was cooked in , into a gravy separator, then you can separate the yummy, lemony, spicey, chickeny juices from the fat, and pour over your chicken.

To be honest I am not totally sure how many calories, but as you have removed the skin and therefore most of the fat before cooking I know its not very high. Also as the potatoes are cooked just using a spray of low fat spray oil they are also a lot lower than your normal roasties, how low depends on how many sprays you use I guess!

Anyway give it a go and let me know what you think!

I ♡ Tatties..

I am trying to give up carbs as part of this diet thing. It was either them or meat, and I’m sorry but I bloody love my meat.

I am finding I am having to ween myself off them. Yesterday with my salad I had 2 small new potatoes, today I had just one. They taste so yummy.

Then I thought just now that it is Sunday tomorrow. Sunday is roast day. Chicken, pork, lamb or beef with lots of veggies, but also as important, roast potatoes.

Golden and crunchy on the outside white light and fluffy on the inside. I had finally managed to suss how to cook the perfect roast potato about this time last year. Everytime since my tatties have been perfect. Par boiled for the right amount of time, right type of oil nice and hot, oven set right, shaking the tin and hearing their crisp shells crack against the sides, then taking them out and placing them on kitchen paper to get rid off the excess fat, and then serving them up on the plates with the meat and veg. And lastly pouring on that rich gravy made in the meats roasting tin, making sure it doesn’t spill onto the tatties and make them go soft. Ummmmm roast potatoes surely the food of the gods.

And then there is the jacket potato. The crisp brown skin opened up and a knob of butter forked into the soft insides. A good helping of baked beans and a generous grating of cheese on to. Or without the beans on a plate of salad and lovely sliced of cold cooked gammon.
Jacket potatoes the food of the demigods.

And where would we be without the mashed potato? Mashed till light and fluffy with a knob of butter and a splash of milk, seasoned with freshly ground pepper and salt (sometimes with a little whole grain mustard mixed in too). Served with anything, but nothing beats it spooned on top of mince, sprinkled with grated cheese and put in the oven to go golden to produce the comfort food of all comfort foods the shepards/cottage pie.

Then there is the humble new potato. Boiled, eaten hot or cold, as a salad or with a salad, with lovely spring lamb or some fresh salmon. Small and perfect in every way. 

I guess I should include chips. But the only ones worth mentioning are the ones eaten out of the paper on the beach or riverside. Sprinkled with salt and vinegar that stings your nostrils as you breath their heavenly scent when they are first unwrapped.

Potatoes, what can I say? I will miss you, but I know one day we can be happy together again, but for now I must say, not goodbye, just a fond farewell and adieu until I can take pleasure in your scrummyness once more. I will miss you…….