Jaime Oliver’s Chicken with Sweet Tomatoes (My favorite 2017 Recipe)
I love Jamie Oliver’s food revolution! This is a dish that can be thrown together in minutes, and lovely when served. It gets my 2017 award for the best new recipe!
Ingredients
- 4 higher-welfare chicken legs, jointed*
- sea salt
- freshly ground black pepper
- 1 big bunch fresh basil , leaves picked, stalks finely chopped
- 2 big handfuls red and yellow cherry tomatoes and ripe plum tomatoes , cherry tomatoes halved, plum tomatoes quartered
- 1 whole bulb garlic , broken into cloves
- 1 fresh red chilli , finely chopped
- olive oil
- 410 g tinned cannellini beans , drained, optional
- 2 handfuls new potatoes , scrubbed, optional
*Higher welfare birds are reared in more humane and natural surroundings; and the name given to farms that design their systems to provide good animal welfare for the birds, usually based on scientific understanding. This means that the birds do not need drugs or decontamination before reaching our dinner plates. In most cases, organic and free range is the best option.
Method
- Preheat your oven to 350°F. Season your chicken pieces all over and put them into a snug-fitting pan in one layer. Throw in all the basil leaves and stalks, then chuck in your tomatoes. Scatter the garlic cloves into the pan with the chopped chilli and drizzle over some olive oil. Mix around a bit, pushing the tomatoes underneath. Place in the oven for 2 hours, turning the tomatoes halfway through, until the chicken skin is crisp and the meat falls off the bone.
- If you fancy, you can add some drained cannellini beans or some sliced new potatoes to the pan and cook them with the chicken. Or you can serve the chicken with some simple mashed potato. Squeeze the garlic out of the skins before serving. You could even make it part of a pasta dish – remove the chicken meat from the bone and shred it, then toss into a bowl of linguini or spaghetti and serve at once.
Recipe hint: I cook this recipe at 350 for 1 1/2 hour, and then another 30-60 minutes at 325 until fall off the bone!
