Every once in a while, I like to ring the changes. And even the good old roast dinner can benefit from a bit of a shakeup.
So, the kids are playing outside and I'm going to do a beautiful lunch for all of those guys. I'm going to do a roast chicken. Now, a roast chicken is something that most of us buy most weeks, week in week out. And yes, we know how to roast a chicken. But I was thinking a lot recently, as I've been cooking for the family a lot more: can we kind of take that thing that we love and just bend it to different places? So, I've got this idea about introducing two great things. The margarita pizza, right? Just think about it for a second. And the great British roast. Can we do some kind of version where the two worlds come together? So, what is a margarita? We got basil. We got tomatoes. We also have mozzarella. And I'll pull out my chicken as well.
So, if you go to the supermarket, they also have smoked mozzarella, or you can even get smoked cheddar. So, this is open for different interpretations, but let's stick to Italy: mozzarella, basil, tomato, and the great British roast. How are we going to get that to work? So, in here, I've got a kilo and a half of Maris Piper potatoes, not peeled. Right? I left the skin on because it's tastier, more nutritious, and it saves me a job. So, boil that as usual. Salty boiling water, 15 minutes.
And then I've got a kilo and a half of very ripe tomatoes here. It doesn't matter what color or shape they are. As long as they're ripe, that's all that matters. Don't keep them in the fridge. Some baave them. It's always good when they're on the vine, full of flavor. So, just half those tomatoes, throw them into the tray. It's so simple that I feel guilty. But let's not tell anyone that. Let's let everyone think that I've made a big effort. So, in there, we're going to go two bulbs of garlic. Yes, two, right? You can do one if you want, but do two, right? Just put your weight on it and crunch them like that.
Now, I'm not going to peel them because if you leave them in the skin, they will go caramelized and sweet and delicious, and the garlickiness is incredibly mild, right? It's genius.
Now, I've got basil here, so I'm going to do three things with it. I'm going to just grab the stalks. I'm going to rip the stalks off and put that there. I'll take a few of these leaves here just to kind of get the flavor going a little bit. And I'll save these for afterwards.
And then what I want to do is a good seasoning of sea salt and pepper is going to draw out the flavor beautifully. Then we're going to give it a little slug of nice red or white wine vinegar. It could even be balsamic vinegar. And then at least the same amount of nice olive oil. Just mix this up and dress it just as you would a salad.
And then we're going to pick our chicken up in all of its fine beauty. Nice freerange chicken. About 1.4 kilos, give or take. This will be enough for my family, 'cause they're all different ages and sizes. And then I'm just going to put it into this tray and move it around in that salt, pepper, vinegar, and olive oil. Once it's had a good old basting of that tomatoey juice, right, then I'm going to get this basil here. I'm going to just grab the stalks. We don't want to waste that. That goes up the jaxi, and throughout the roasting it's going to have that lovely basil essence just coming out. So, look, that is pretty much it. Let me wash my hands.
Okay, so the next bit, get yourself some tongs. Put the tongs in the cavity of the chicken so you can pick it up. Right, we're going to put these beautiful tomatoes in the middle and we're going to put the chicken directly on top. Right, that's allowing you to get 360 degrees of proper roasting. Okay, and then underneath it's going to rain down chicken juices that would normally make the gravy and give you the world's best slow roast tomatoes. So, put the chicken in the oven for about an hour and a half. It's at 180 degrees C, which is 350 Fahrenheit.
Next up, potatoes. So, how could I even think about taking away the brilliant roast potato? I mean, a roast potato is the best thing in the world. But just for a change, how about giant roasted mozzarella stuffed gnocchi? Yeah, you heard me right. Giant roasted mozzarella stuffed gnocchi. Completely mad.
Now, I got this idea 'cause I was thinking how, you know, those gnocchis you can buy or make, you can boil, put the sauce, but actually you can fry them. If you can fry them, then you can roast them. If you can roast them, you can make them bigger. If you can make them bigger, you can put your thumb in there and stuff it with something. Simple as that. I tested it, and lo and behold, it was a thing of joy. But more than anything, it's just fun. It's fun. And we're linking in that margarita thing. So, we're going to have a mashup. Those little skins are going to get broken up as well. They'll give you beautiful texture by adding some seasoning. You know, that's going to give it some nice flavor.
So, when I was in Rome, I was taught how to make really beautiful Roman gnocchi by this incredible grandmother. And she didn't use egg yolks to enrich and kind of bind it, right? 'Cause if you did it straight away, you didn't need to. She just used a bit of flour. So, that's exactly what I'm going to do. So, you want to put in about 50 gram, or 3 tablespoons of flour into that mix. Mash it up. Now, by doing this, you're kind of giving the potato a little bit more structure, and you're going to be able to mold it into a ball. And then you can get that onto a board. Scoop it all out. And then while it's still hot, just use your knife just to sort of flatten it down. And we'll divide that into 12.
Okay, roughly the same size. Don't lose sleep over it, but you know, roughly 12 evenly sized balls. In half, then in half again. And let's get three out of each chunk here, give or take. Even it up if you're a little bit wonky like me. So, that's it. It's cooled down quickly. You can pick it up now. Now you start to see where I'm going, right? And this is child's play again. Like literally the easiest thing in the world to do.
So, look at that. Get this, put your thumb in it, wiggle it about, and then you got something you can stuff. And I'm going to stuff it with a beautiful smoked mozzarella. If you can get it, and it's more common these days, it gives you that sense that this entire meal has been roasted in a beautiful Italian wood oven. Yeah. Right alongside a pizza. Get that. Stuff it like that. And then simply mold it around.
And then once you got it stuffed, you can just put it backwards and forwards like that, like a cricket ball. And then you got a lovely little circular stuffed. Easy.
So, these, my friends, are things of joy. And remember, when these roast in the oven, you're going to get really crispy outside of the potato and really soft and fluffy inside. So, it has that kind of deliciousness of a roast potato, but when you bite into this one, you've got smoky mozzarella oozing out. Double pleasure. And when I first gave this to my kids, the faces of joy were unbelievable. And that, my friends, is what it's all about. Just getting people to go, 'Oo, delicious.' And they're really hard to get wrong, actually, because we put that flour in the potato. They're quite malleable.
Okay, get yourself a baking tray with a little bit of olive oil just to stop them sticking, and they'll get nice crispy bottoms. Rub that in, and then nestle these lovely cheese stuffed potato balls next to each other like that. Come on. We're going to put those in the oven. These go in the bottom. So, we're fully utilizing the oven, right? You can see already that the chicken's starting to drip onto the tomatoes and do its magic. So, another hour of cooking and beautiful things will happen.
Can you cut the rocket and push it into here? You know, the green one here. Open it and snip it. Yay. Can you get me some more? Do you want to have some other salad? So, we have some salad thanks to my little boy. The kids are still out there playing. Let's serve up this brilliant dinner. This brilliant family meal. After about an hour and a half, the chicken's done. Just take a little moment just to kind of get your head around it. Chicken roasting 360, dripping down onto these incredible tomatoes. Underneath we've got our beautiful roasted stuffed gnocchi. They flattened down now, but it's all looking amazing.
And as you take that chicken out, look at the juices. All juices. All beautifully cooked. So, I like to put the basil in. Now, do you remember the basil from the beginning that we ripped off and put aside? We've got that freshness. We've got that color. That's exciting.
And then, as for those potatoes, what you have got is crispiness galore. Crispy on the bottom. And you can see bits of cheese that's forced its way out. It's going to be absolutely sublime. You can give it a nice little base of the juices. You know, the tomatoes have kind of reduced and shrunk up a little bit, but you can smell that it's become more concentrated in that tomatoy flavor with the basil juicy chicken. Wow.
So, look, let me plate one up for you. What you're going to get is the most delicious chicken. Let's get a nice slice of the breast. That is so juicy. It's such a succulent way to cook your chicken, 'cause it's getting that full-on roast, but the tomatoes are giving the oven that kind of humidity. It's keeping it moist in there. Gorgeous.
And then let's get in to what's in this tray, 'cause this would normally go into a gravy. We've got these amazing roasted tomatoes. Just the way these have slow roasted, they've become just gorgeous and wonderful. The garlic here, if you just squeeze it, it will come out of the skin, and it is just so creamy and so mild and so delicious. They're like sweets. So good. My kids actually like squeezing the garlic out. Let's get one of these lovely. You can see that it's soft in the middle. It's oozing out cheese and crispy on the outside. So, let's get that in there like that.
And then look at here. Look at all the liquor. This is just gold. Treat it exactly as you would gravy. Get it over everything. And it is literally like the taste of margarita pizza. And what a greenhouse full of tomatoes smells like. Beautiful. And then for me personally, just having that with a nice salad with just a little olive oil. Absolutely beautiful. Let's have a little go. Wow.
Wow. Just the time that you get to give the tomatoes, it just rewards you in this slap of sunshine. It's so exciting and vivacious. It literally is the flavors of margarita. So light.
But over here, our loyal friend, Mr. Roasted Stuffed Gnocchi. Look here. Look. Oozy, oozy, oozy, oozy, oozy. Stringiness. Look at that. Filthy. I mean, in a good way. I'm telling you, this combo, it works. So good. And by the way, get a spoon. This is not just a knife and fork job. That juice is insane. I'm so pleased with that.
Kids, dinner. My kids always love a roast chicken. And what I want to do, and kind of inspired by the last few months where I've been cooking for my family a lot more, I'm kind of caught, I'm caught between like classics and the predictable, and then the possibility of new things, opportunity, new flavors, new ways of doing things that we love. So, I want to take you on a little journey to France. I'm thinking lentils, spinach. We're going to go wild mushrooms. I'm going to use tarragon. It's in all the supermarkets. It's probably the least bought herb, but if you use it with attitude, it's brilliant. Paired up with some whole roasted garlic.
Let's get this party going. It's beyond simple, right? Let's just lube up the chicken with some nice olive oil, a little swig of vinegar, basic sort of marinade. Hit it up with salt and pepper, a whole bulb of garlic, the tarragon. We're going to pick these lovely leaves later, but then the stalk. No, no. We're not going to put that in the bin because that is going up the jaxi of the chicken. So, rub this chicken all over with the seasoning. That is the job for now. Done. I've got the oven turned on. It's preheated already. It's at 180 degrees C, which is 350 Fahrenheit. So, there you go. In the oven. That's it. Now, I'm free for an hour to do some jobs.
So, the chicken's had an hour, just over, and that is a beautiful and very familiar sight, right? Golden chicken. We got the garlics all roasted up. If we tip the tray here, look at that. All the lovely juices that would normally make a gravy. I'm going to drain all the juices out of this lovely chicken, which is nearly cooked. It's not quite cooked, right? And I want to add beautiful flavor to that.
So, I'm going to get some gorgeous smoked streaky bacon. Of course, you can use pancetta if you want. And if you get caught out, you can use prosciutto and stuff like that. But for me, smoky bacon is the winner, and lay it over the breast. And as we put it back into the oven, this will go golden and crisp. The fat will render and continue to baste the chicken. At the same time, it stops the oven putting more heat into that breast at such a speed. So, actually, the breast meat and the leg meat will even up in cooking. So, look, you can put three or four rashers on there. Five or six if you want to be generous.
And in here, look at this. All the drippings, all the sticky bit, and our funky little garlic clove here. So, what I want to do is take the garlic off the bulb, and inside here will be sticky sweet heaven. All that goodness should come out just like that. So almost caramelized. Smells amazing. So already, sort of emotionally, I'm definitely in France. And you know the French are so good at putting combinations together, aren't they? And you're going to get mega flavor from this garlic. And this is kind of the little bit of the story now where it starts to go a different direction. So, that whole bulb of garlic ends up being a flavor hit.
So, look here. We've got 650 gram of beautiful mixed mushrooms. They look so posh and lovely. These are from the supermarket. If you're stuck in a button mushroom rut, you can still do it, and joyfully so. But there's all this other stuff. You got shiitakes, the Asian mushrooms, beautiful portobellas. What I like to do is get the small mushrooms that I think are beautiful and just sprinkle. If they're a little bit big, just tear them in half. I like tearing them. Sometimes I just kind of crush them if I fancy it. Go a bit rustic. And then we got these king oysters here. How fabulous are they? These I think are quite nice to slice because the cross sections are so beautiful.
So, we'll get those in, and we're going to roast them under that chicken for the last 20 minutes. We'll hit it up with some seasoning. Black pepper and salt. Let's just get in there. So, dress it like a salad. Chicken gravy mushrooms. Come on.
So, look at that. It's like a harvest festival. It's all good. And I was going to say it's all gravy. And it really is in gravy. But look, it gets better than this because it's not just that that's going to kiss these mushrooms, because this chicken is going to sit on top. Watch this. For a brilliant little tip, the mushrooms go at the bottom of the oven. So, they're frying from the bottom and roasting from the top. Mega flavor.
We're going to take this chicken that's nearly cooked, and we're going to place it directly onto the bars. And that bacon will get golden and start to render. It will baste the chicken, protect the breast, and the journey throughout that chicken to get more flavor then rains down on the mushrooms. They're going to be the best mushrooms you've ever had. So, look, just cook that for another 20 minutes until it's golden and delicious. And then I'm going to make myself the most beautiful spinach lentils with creme fresh. Super easy.
Time's up on the chicken. Have a little look. I just love this method. You can see that the bacon's got golden and crispy. You can see it raining down fat. See that? The mushrooms are just sizzling away. Proper flavor. Let's just plate this up now. Let's get this all going. Look at that. Come on. Look how juicy that chicken is.
So, there we go. Absolutely beautiful. And if you just angle the pan, you've got all of these incredible juices. Look at that. Let's have a little try just to check the seasoning. Big, deep, deep flavor. Delicious.
All I'm going to do now, because this is a lovely one tray recipe, is put these incredible mushrooms on a nice platter. And look how lovely they look. So, normally when we roast a lovely bird, we're going to let it rest, right? So, we'll do exactly that again. Take that chicken as a real centerpiece on those mushrooms like that. And then take the tarragon. I've got that in ice just to kind of keep it really fresh and gorgeous. And that is what we serve at the dinner table.
And then we're going to use the same tray. So, no more washing up. We'll go in there with some olive oil. I'll take a bag or two of lovely spinach. And in a matter of a minute, that will wilt down to be soft and tender. Look at the depth of color here.
I'm all in for roast potatoes. Always. Mashed potatoes, happy. Actually, potatoes, full stop. But to change it up, lentils are amazing. And I think the British have still got a little way to go to fall in love with them, to understand them. But the French for sure love them, and they're very good at flavoring them. And you can buy beautiful green lentils in tins. You can get them dried. They're really nutritious. They're incredibly good value.
Drain off most of the water. Bring them to the boil like this. And now let me tell you how to season them to be delicious. We're going to kiss it with vinegar. Tiny little swig makes a huge difference. Season it to your liking.
And then at this stage, I'm going to use a brilliant French ingredient, creme fresh. So delicious. You've got that incredible rich, rich cream, but it's soured. And this rippled through is phenomenal. So, just take a couple of little spoons, and the natural heat of the lentils will start just to break it down. What I like to do is just let the creme fresh just melt. And don't stir it, otherwise it just kind of goes creamy. And then we're just going to take it over to a platter and let it naturally ripple on there, and it should be divine.
How gorgeous is that? Come on. Roast chicken. Beautiful. Spinachy lentils. What a joy. It looks like an oil painting. Like it just feels exciting. So good. Okay, time to serve a little portion up.
Pommoa. So, I've always felt like lentils are really good under things, whether it's steaks, roasted fish. So, that goes on first, 'cause then all the gravy can kind of get trapped in between that. So, with the chicken, let's just take a nice little slice of the breast. The bacon will fall off. Look at that.
The thing I love about this is the roast chicken is so familiar, yet how we put it together is really, really exciting. And then look, we've got this natural gravy that's come out of the mushrooms that's just so good. I'm so excited to try this.
That is definitely a plate of joy. Right, I'm going to get a glass of wine. It's required. So, a roast dinner, but with a nice little twist. Let's have a little try. Knife, fork. I am very excited. Come on, Mr. Mushroom.
Wow. That is delicious. I don't know what to say. The mushrooms are so juicy, and with the chicken, they're like two peas in a pod. They're so good together. That tarragon that you think could be insignificant actually is like the icing on the cake. It absolutely makes it. And that little enrichment of creme fresh through the lentils, it is utterly delicious. I am so happy right now. Speechless. What a joy.
I am getting really excited at the moment about taking the everyday sort of ingredients like a roast chicken and just going to a different place. This chicken's going on holiday, right? We're going to do a makeover, and we're going to Korea. And the way to get that to there is a nice little ingredient, kimchi. Right. This is an incredible fermented pickle, really. And this is what's pretty much served in Korea with every meal, in different ways, in broths, in dumplings, with rice dishes. It's full of spice. It's full of veg. And I'm going to use this in different ways. We're going to marinate it with a kimchi marinade. We're going to glaze it with a kimchi glaze. And then I'm going to use this kimchi also to dress like a whole load of vegetables to make the most beautiful rainbow slaw ever. So, let's do it. Let's bring a little bit of sunshine into your life.
So, chicken, you can go aside for a minute. The kimchi. Listen to it when I open it. And if I put it down, you'll probably even start to see it sort of almost coming out the jar. It's actually moving.
First up, I'm going to put it into a liquidizer. 300 g. And I'm going to add some water. 100 mls goes in like that. I'm going to take some ginger, a nice big fat thumb-sized piece of ginger. And I'll just trim it off like that. When you cut off the skin like this, you can dry it and make wonderful kind of dry ginger fat teas, which is really, really nice. So, that thumb-sized piece of ginger goes in here with the water. And I'm just going to give it a little bit of a hit of olive oil and a swig of vinegar, red or white wine vinegar. And we're going to whiz that up in here.
Okay. So, I've whizzed this up until it's really fine. Woo! Full of flavor. So, I'm going to use this in three ways. So, one third in this roasting tray as a marinade. Right. And then over here, I'm going to create a glaze. Just take two or three tablespoons of really nice honey. One, two. The honey turns this into a shiny, sticky, tacky glaze, and that will stick to the cooked chicken, and then we can kind of embellish it later. And then this last third that will become the most incredible dressing for a beautiful rainbow slaw.
Let's get the chicken cooking, because actually if I wasn't yapping, putting this together is super quick. So, let's do it. Chicken into the marinade. This is the time to earn your flavor. Get it in all the cracks and crannies, in between the little wings, around the legs, in the cavity. An amazing marinade. You could do it with fish, you could do it prawns, you could do it pork chops, right? It's got attitude. So, let me just wash my hands.
Okay, so at this stage in the game, that's going in the oven. Just put a little swig of water in. By adding the water to the tray, what I love about that is we're going to get roasting happening on the top. And then that little bit of water creates steam. And steam and these beautiful fragrant flavors, I think, works really well to give you crispy skin and juicy breast meat. So, the chicken goes in the oven, no matter what oven you're using, 180 degrees C, which is 350 Fahrenheit, for an hour and 20 minutes. Halfway through, I'll take it out. I'll baste all the beautiful juices on top. I might add a little bit more water. And that's going to be the most beautiful, succulent, crispy skin chicken ever.
So, the chicken's had about an hour of roasting. I've given it a nice little baste. I want to show you the next part.
First up, I'm going to toast some sesame seeds. By toasting, you're going to amplify the flavor and you're going to get more of a kind of nutty texture. So just put that on a high heat and just kind of toss it around like this. It doesn't take very long. Just a little bit of heat and a little bit of time. Look at that. And that makes a massive difference, not just in texture and how it looks, but also in how it tastes. Without question, watch the seeds while you're toasting them, because that, and pine nuts, and actual toast, is the thing that I always forget and burn. Yep, you heard it right. So in this same pan, I'm going to do rice. Simple, nutty, fluffy rice. Get your reliable mug and fill it up with basmati rice. And if you do one mug to the top flat, this is perfect for four to six people. And then two mugs of water. Tiny little pinch of salt. Lid on top. Medium-high heat, about 12 minutes. Works every single time. By the time every bit of that water has absorbed into the rice, the rice is done. Light, fresh, and nutty. That with the gorgeous chicken is going to be amazing. Let's get this chicken and let's get to business.
Just have a look at this lovely chicken. Wow. Come on. So we've got beautiful crispy skin, we've got juicy meat, and we've got flavor happening from the inside and the outside. So let's take this beautiful chicken. You can always test if it's nice and cooked by angling the chicken and looking at the juices when it comes out, and if it runs clear, it's basically done. So I'm going to go with the lovely glaze here, and I'm just going to embellish. I want to drip it everywhere. Come on. Now is the fun bit. You take your everyday chicken and you give it a proper makeover. So look, I love this bit because essentially I'm pebble-dashing this lovely glazed chicken with sesame seeds. Every bit has got to be touched. No part of this chicken should be unbejeweled. Can you imagine how delicious that's going to be? Sumptuous chicken, crispy skin, glaze, tang, funk, spice, and then that hit of crunchy, like, ah, gorgeous sesame seeds.
So in this tray here, I have gnarly bits and sticky bits. What I want to do is take that last third of our kimchi sauce, and I'm going to take a pack of tofu, the silken tofu, really silky and gorgeous. I'll whiz it up, and that will become the most incredible dressing for a beautiful crunchy rainbow veg slaw. It's going to be amazing. The slaw, the rice, the chicken. Come on.
So, this lovely dressing, I'll just have a little bit as a sauce, just to dip with. That in itself is delicious. The tofu gives it an amazing, gorgeous, silky texture. So we've got that into all these drippings. Now, what I'm going to do is just add pre-prepped veg. So this is two packs from a supermarket. It's a fantastic little cheat. And look at the quality of the veg. So now just get your hands in and dress it up. Feel free to kind of scrunch it up, because that breaks up any of the cabbages and kind of makes it take on the flavor and tenderizes it. If you've got any of those lovely sticky drippings, you can put that in there as well. You don't have to waste any of this. But look, look at the colors.
And the rice is basically done. So let's plate it up. Fork up that rice. Fantastic steamy, light rice. And then get a nice bowl of the slaw. Look at that. That is a roast chicken dinner like you've never seen before. Imagine putting that in front of your friends or family. It's completely bonkers. My lot are going to destroy it. They're going to love it. Look, I'm going to have a little cheeky taste. I know the flavors are going to be delicious. It's just unbelievable.
So it's so juicy because we've given it that little kiss of water during the cooking and basting, and we've retained all those beautiful juices. That kimchi has been a flavor gift that has kept on going. Come on, let's get in there.
Oh, it's so good. The chicken is so juicy, but yet that kind of glaze has got those sesame seeds that are actually crunching and popping in my mouth. River will go nuts about that chicken skin because it is so blooming tasty. And with the crunch of the slaw, texturally, it's just off the chart. It's got very gentle spice, ginger freshness, and then this just kind of undescribable kind of big exciting flavor. That is so good. I think my lot are going to love it. It's dinner.
When days are busy and you've got a lot of mouths to feed, the humble roast chicken is a thing of beauty. So I'm going to cook a delicious one-pan roast chicken. Now, the idea of stuffing a roast chicken isn't new, but the way I'm going to do it is right. So my family is a bit topsy-turvy, probably like yours, and I want to do a dish that's good for everyone, from my three-year-old right up to Jules. I've always got someone that likes certain things, some people that like others. So look, chicken winner, sausage winner, and I've got the simplest way to put the two together. There's a few little tips and tricks that amplify flavor and deliciousness. We're going to do beautiful Cumberland sausages under the skin. It's going to absolutely make that breast meat so succulent and tasty. It's just going to be so good.
All right, let's get cracking. So even though this is all about the chicken, let me just put that aside for a second. I want to make the most amazing sliced potato, parsnip and leek bake. The flavors of these three things together are amazing. So I'm literally just going to slice up a scrubbed parsnip. I haven't peeled them; the flavor is definitely in the skin. Go as thin as you comfortably can, and just get slices like this. If it's ever a bit wobbly, go on that flat edge, and we'll just slice through that again. So I'm kind of pulling my finger out, because if I've learned one thing in 20 years of marriage with my wife, it's do not be late for lunch. She keeps me on time. That's good. So, two parsnips, about 700 grams of potatoes. You can use Maris Pipers. I just dug these up. Beautiful red-skinned potatoes. But it could be carrots, it could be celery, it could be turnips. You can muck about with it. Anything crunchy, any great root vegetable can be sliced up and put with this.
With the leeks, I often look at them in two ways, right? You've got the white part that is just silky smooth, so we can do nice sort of same-size slices as the potatoes with this. And then where the sunlight has sort of seen the leeks, it's turned it green and it's a little bit tough. So what I tend to do with those darker parts is finely slice that a bit more if you can. It just helps the heat get to it.
So in here, I'm going to add some sage leaves. You could use rosemary, you could use thyme. The nice thing as well, it's in one tray, so less to wash up. So perfect if you kind of got stuff to do or, you know, family running around and you want to kind of just enjoy the moment a little bit more. Who wants to wash up all day, right? So we're going to bring that together with a nice lug of olive oil, a good pinch of pepper, a good pinch of sea salt, and we'll give it a good old toss.
So the genius thing here is I'm going to cook the chicken on top of it. So chicken juices are raining down on this potato dish. It's going to be really, really good. Right, let's get on to our chicken. Now, first up, I'm going to take some sage and do the only polite thing, which is stick some up the jacksie. That will flavor from the inside out, for no reason other than aesthetics. If you want a nice knuckle on the end of the chicken bone, just run your knife around the top of the chicken leg, just like that. It's super simple. And then just disjoint it like that, and then you get that as a finish, which I think is better. Then we come to stuffing it.
The challenge with roasting the perfect chicken is this breast meat often gets cooked before the legs, right? So what we can do is even up the cooking times by protecting the breast with a lovely Cumberland sausage. Get your finger and put it on one side of the breast. Can you see my finger under the skin? And just make a little bit of a gap. Then in with a spatula, and just carefully pulling the skin at the tip towards you. You don't want to tear it. See how the spatula easily goes down, and that will prise a gap. Now this means opportunity. Opportunity for herbs, marinades, and in this case a ruddy good sausage. We're going to use this almost like a piping bag, right? So we can kind of squeeze it out.
Now, there's nothing glamorous and visually appealing about this, but if you love food, you've got to go with the flow. This is family cooking here. I remember the first time I saw my mum stuffing the Christmas turkey, and I got shocked. But it's just love. It's flavor. So I'm going to squeeze the meat out of the sausage, right, and into this breast area. Get rid of the skin. What we're doing is creating like a little protective layer that will stop the heat from the oven getting to the breast as fast. On the other side, spatula in like that. Sausage number two. It's just a really easy way to do it. You can shape it in, and then just grab a cocktail stick. Then you can pull the skin over like that. See how I've gone through two bits of the skin? Then you can kind of wind it up like this, and then secure it in here like that.
What I'll do now is just wash my hands. You all right, River? What's the matter with him, Jay?
