Supper Club: 3 back-to-school easy chicken recipes

Marinated chicken flatbreads with charred limes and saffron butter

Sally Butcher and her husband Jamshid kindly talked Catherine Phipps through this recipe, which is a Middle Eastern classic. Poussin are skinned, cut up and left to sit in a bath of lime juice for 24 hours, before they are grilled or barbecued, basted all the while with saffron butter.

Persians normally use concentrated bottled juice for this which is seriously sherbety and a bit of an acquired taste. Use this or a regular bottled sort – or if you can find a use for zest use around 12-15 large limes.

Ingredients

• 1 chicken (or 2 poussin), each cut into 10 pieces, skin on
• a large pinch of saffron strands
• 1 tbsp boiling water
• 100g butter
• 1 garlic clove, crushed
• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

 

For the marinade

• a large pinch of saffron strands
• 1 tbsp boiling water
  
• 250ml lime juice (or sour orange or lemon)
  
• 1 onion, coarsely grated

 

For the cucumber and yoghurt sauce

• 200ml yoghurt
  
• a handful of mint leaves, finely chopped
  
• 1/2 cucumber, peeled, halved lengthways, deseeded, grated and drained
  
• a pinch of sugar

 

To serve

• 4 limes, halved
  
• soft flatbreads
• flat-leaf parsley, chopped
• Lime-Pickled Red Onions (see recipe below)

Method

1. Put the chicken in a refrigerator-friendly receptacle. Season generously with salt and pepper.
2. Using a pestle and mortar, grind the saffron for the marinade with a pinch of salt and mix with the boiling water. Add to the citrus juice and pour the lot over the chicken or poussins, along with the onion. Refrigerate and marinate overnight.
3. The next day, either get your barbecue ready or heat your oven to its highest temperature. Grind and soak the saffron in the boiling water, as before, and put it in a saucepan with the butter and garlic. Melt together.
4. Drain and pat dry the chicken pieces, then either arrange over your barbecue or a baking tray. Baste with the butter and cook for 10 minutes. Baste again, cook for a further 10 minutes, then repeat. By this time the chicken should be cooked through and nicely browned and blistered. Reheat any remaining butter.
5. Put the limes on the barbecue or on a griddle pan for a couple of minutes.
6. Mix the yoghurt with the mint and grated cucumber, and season with salt and a pinch of sugar.
7. To serve, warm through the flatbreads. Serve the chicken torn from the bone and piled into flatbreads with the yoghurt, any leftover basting butter, parsley, pickled onions and squeezes of the charred limes.

 

Lime-pickled red onions

These are unbelievably quick and easy and keep in the refrigerator for several weeks.

Ingredients

• 1 large red onion, thinly sliced
• 100ml lime juice
• 1 tsp salt
• a few cracked peppercorns

To serve

• freshly chopped herbs, such as coriander or parsley
  
• 1 tsp sumac

Method

1. Put the onions in a bowl and pour over freshly boiled water to cover. Leave to stand for 20 seconds, then drain.
2. In a small bowl, mix the lime juice with the salt. Pour over the onions, add the peppercorns and stir to combine.
3. If serving straight away, leave to stand for at least 30 minutes. Otherwise, transfer to a sterilised jar and store in the refrigerator until needed.
4. To serve, add the fresh herbs (choose whichever matches the dish you are serving it with) and a sprinkling of sumac.

 

Extracted from Citrus: Recipes that Celebrate the Sour and the Sweet by Catherine Phipps (Quadrille). Photography by Mowie Kay.

Diana Henry’s stuffed Greek chicken with orzo

Having a roast doesn’t have to mean a series of pots on the hob, trying to ensure everything cooks at the same rate. This roast has it all. You have double carbs – orzo and stuffing – but it works: the bread becomes deliciously soft and soggy with the juices from the tomatoes.

Serves 6

Ingredients

• 1.8kg chicken
• 75g feta cheese, crumbled
• 115g tomatoes, chopped
• 75g coarse country bread, torn into small pieces
• 4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil, plus more to drizzle
• 2 garlic cloves, finely grated
• 3 tsp dried oregano
• sea salt flakes and freshly ground black pepper
• ½ tsp cayenne pepper
• 225g orzo
• 500ml boiling chicken stock
• 1 tbsp chopped flat-leaf parsley leaves, or chopped leaves from 4 oregano sprigs
• green salad, or roasted peppers, to serve

 

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 190°C fan/gas mark 6.
2. Put the chicken into an ovenproof dish – I use a cast-iron one – which is 30cm in diameter. Mix the feta, tomatoes, bread, olive oil, garlic, half the dried oregano and some seasoning in a bowl. Stuff this into the chicken cavity.
3. Rub the chicken – breast and legs – with the cayenne, sprinkle with the rest of the dried oregano, then season the bird and drizzle it with olive oil.
4. Roast in the oven for 50 minutes.
5. Sprinkle the orzo around the chicken and pour on the boiling stock. Return to the oven for a final 20 minutes. Check during this time to make sure the orzo isn’t becoming dry: there should be enough stock in it, but top it up with a little boiling water if you need to.
6. The chicken should be cooked: check by piercing it deeply between the leg and the body, the juices that run out should be clear, with no traces of pink. The orzo should be tender and the stock should have been absorbed.
7. Stir the fresh chopped herbs into the orzo and serve the chicken straight from the dish. A green salad or roasted red peppers is all you need on the side.

Extracted from From the Oven to the Table: Simple dishes that look after themselves by Diana Henry (Mitchell Beazley,). Photography by Laura Edwards.

Dale Pinnock’s Chicken, avocado and blue cheese salad

This is a firm favourite of Dale Pinnock’s, a salad that is popular around California and one of the first things on his list whenever he visits. This really does encompass each principle in his book, The Medicinal Chef: The Power of Three – amazing nutrient density, very low glycaemic response and rich in fatty acids. Oh, and it tastes amazing too!

Ingredients

• 2 handfuls mixed salad leaves
  1 cooked chicken breast, sliced
  1 ripe avocado, sliced
  60g blue cheese, diced or crumbled
  1-2 soft- or hard-boiled eggs, halved or chopped

 

For the dressing

• 2 tsp mayonnaise
  3 tsp olive oil
  1 tsp white wine vinegar
  1 tsp grated Parmesan cheese

 

Method

1. Place the mixed leaves in a bowl and top with the chicken, avocado, blue cheese and soft- or hard-boiled eggs.
2. Combine the dressing ingredients and mix well, before pouring over the salad and tossing well to coat.

 

Extracted from The Medicinal Chef: The Power of Three by Dale Pinnock (Quadrille). Photograph by Martin Poole.