SIMPLE BBQ CHICKEN
by Neil Clifton
One of my oldest serving friends is also the admin of a WhatApp group I am part of called "Good Food, Good Mood" its a place to share our recent restaurant visits, or as it normally happens - a live up date of what we are eating while in a nice restaurant with our friends and family! I asked him for his thoughts on what should be included on the site in terms of recipes, top of the list was "simple roast chicken" So I took that and thought to myself when did I eat the best roast chicken ever - Lyons, with a hang over after watching The Warriors lose the day before. But that didn't matter, we had fresh rotisserie chicken, potatoes cooked in the chicken fat and a fresh baguette, what we didn't have was cutlery, but we did have an extra ladle of chicken fat - simply amazing.
Here I made it with a summer salad and an Alabama BBQ Sauce.
INGREDIENTS
Chicken:
1 Large, free range chicken
3 lemons
Salt and Pepper
100g butter diced
Salad:
2 carrots
1/4 red cabbage
200g couscous
1 sweetcorn
Alabama BBQ Sauce:
2 cups mayonnaise
1/2 cup prepared horseradish (from a jar)
1⁄4 cup apple cider vinegar
3 tbsp sugar
2 tsp yellow mustard
3 tsp salt
2 tsp ground black pepper
1/2 tsp cayenne
METHOD
1. Open up the skin on the breast of the chicken and stuff with the diced butter.
2. Season chicken with salt and pepper.
3. Halve 2 of the lemons and stuff inside the chicken.
4. Rotisserie if possible, otherwise, cook in the oven or bbq, basting the chicken as it cooks to an internal temperature of 75 deg C.
5. While the chicken is cutting, prepare the couscous as per packet instructions. Shred the cabbage finely and julienne the carrots. Set aside.
6. BBQ the sweetcorn until cooked, slice off the cob and add to the salad.
7. Combine the ingredients for the BBQ Sauce in a bowl and serve.
HINTS & TRICKS
Cooking roast poatoes in chicken fat is a real treat and add so much more flavour, they are great to dip into the BBQ sauce too.
WINE SUGGESTION: This is an oaky full bodied white which goes well with the citrus stuffing and doesn't overwhelm the simple flavours of the chicken.
