Catherine Fulvio’s Sicilian lemon roast chicken traybake

TV Chef, food writer and owner of Ballyknocken House & Cookery School, Catherine Fulvio is this week’s Irish Times Food Month guest chef and each day she will share one of her favourite Italian recipes.

Fulvio does not believe in complicated recipes with expensive ingredients.

Instead her focus is on creating recipes that are seasonal, doable and delicious, while not compromising on flavour.

Sicilian lemony roast chicken and potatoes

In a time when we all need to be transported somewhere, this is one of my favourites from a little takeaway place that we love to visit in the seaside town of Ballestrate in Sicily.

Recipe: Roast chicken noodle soup

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It’s such a great family-style recipe and you can add to it to suit your tastes. I sometimes add pancetta or chorizo; other times I add olives and sun-dried tomatoes. It’s zesty and warming and reminiscent of warmer climes.

Serves four

Ingredients
6 large potatoes, peeled and roughly quartered
Extra virgin olive oil, for roasting
4 garlic cloves, sliced
2 lemons: 1 juiced and zested; the other sliced into 6 wedges
7 sprigs of rosemary
6 small sprigs of oregano
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 large corn-fed chicken, portioned (or ask your butcher to do this for you)
3 tbsp plain flour, seasoned with 1 tsp lemon zest, ½ tsp paprika and ¼ tsp salt

Method

1 Preheat the oven to 190°C/fan 170°C/gas 5.

2 To a shallow medium-sized roasting tin, add the potatoes, a generous amount of olive oil, the garlic, lemon juice, zest and wedges and sprigs of rosemary and oregano.

3 Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Toss the potatoes well in the mix then roast for about 20 minutes. Dust the chicken portions in the seasoned flour.

4 Heat a large frying pan with some oil. Add the chicken portions and brown on all sides. Arrange the chicken on top of the potatoes. Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper and baste with the lemon oil from the roasting tray.

Return to the oven and roast for a further 25 minutes or so until the chicken is fully cooked. The juices must run clear from the chicken. Serve with a garden salad of baby spinach leaves, orange segments and a light dressing of orange juice and extra virgin olive oil.

From A Taste of Home, published by Gill