Dinner of the Week: Mediterranean Roast Chicken

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It has (eventually) occurred to me that, people like food and they also like food posts.

At the start of term, my housemates and I decided that instead of scrambling for microwavable stuff every night, we should cook for each other. So far, this has worked out resoundingly well: the thought of having dinner waiting for you at home after a 6 pm finish is a just pure dream.

I’ve learned a little bit (I think…) about cooking in the past 18 months of living out. Starting off from a student cookbook and various recipes online, I have now moved beyond the strict recipes into cooking something slightly more, erm, proper. So basically something other than instant noodles.

As an easy way to keep posting, I thought I’ll share the food I made for my housemates every week (giving it a day or two to check whether I have mistakenly poisoned them first). I’ll start off with last week’s creation, an (according to the cookbook) Mediterranean-style Roast Chicken!

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Roast dishes are one of my main repertoires because it’s surprisingly easy: they are ultimately completed by… bunking EVERYTHING INTO THE OVEN. At some point.

Suffice to say that you’ll need Chicken. Here are the rest of the ingredients, although do not hesitate to pick and mix a bit on your favourite vegetables. Even if they aren’t Mediterranean. Who cares anyway:

INGREDIENTS (for 4 people; use ‘Maths’ to work out appropriate portions)

  • 8 Chicken pieces, preferably thighs. Drumsticks will work.
  • 2 large Potatoes; (I usually cheat by using canned ones)
  • 2 Onions chopped into wedges
  • 2 cloves of garlic, crushed
  • 2 Peppers, chopped into 2cm-ish(?) pieces
  • 2 Courgettes, sliced
  • Olives
  • 1 Chicken stock cube, dissolved in a mug
  • Paprika, Basil and Oregano
  • Oil, Salt and Pepper aka your essentials

(for some reason we’ve inherited A LOT of spices at my student house; and boy have they been useful)

The preparation process is dead easy: all you have to do is to chop everything up by the description above. Afterwards, stick all of them into a big bowl and mix with oil and basil. Meanwhile, marinate the chicken with oil, salt, pepper, paprika and oregano. Then you’re pretty much there.

By accident (that is, having to make everything hours beforehand…), I found out that leaving them for a few hours adds a lot to the taste. So if you do have the time that is what you should do.

Whenever you are ready, put everything onto a casserole dish and add the chicken stock. Then place the dish into the oven on a 200C heat. In about 45 to 50 minutes’ time, you should get this. (forgive the image quality)

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Smiles all round: this is a really simple yet delicious meal.

Category : English, Food, Interests
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