NEW Flavours! Roast Chicken Idea You Should Try At Home

I've got a few things to do today, I've got the kids running wild, I've got to do a few jobs in the garden, but I do want to get a lovely lunch on and a roast chicken is a thing of beauty. 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 flavours, 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 we're not going to put that in the bin because that is going up the jacksie 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 celsius, 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've 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 flavour 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, it's almost caramelised, smells amazing. So already sort of emotionally I'm definitely in France, you know the French are so good at putting combinations together aren't they, and you're going to get mega flavour from this garlic, and this is kind of a little bit of the story now where it starts to go a different direction, so that whole bulb of garlic ends up being a flavour hit. So look here we've got 650 grams 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've got shiitakes, the Asian mushrooms, beautiful portabellas. What I like to do is get the small mushrooms that I think are beautiful and just sprinkle them in, they're a little bit big, just tear them in half, I like tearing them and sometimes I just kind of crush them if I fancy it, go a bit rustic, and then we've 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 get those in, 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 flavour. 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 flavour 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 fraiche, 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 flavour. 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 flavour, 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 centrepiece on those mushrooms like that and then take the tarragon and 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 colour here. I'm all in for roast potatoes always, mashed potatoes, 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 flavouring 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 fraiche, 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 fraiche 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. So I've always felt like lentils are really good under things, whether it's steaks, roasted fish, so that goes on first because 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 fraiche through the lentils, it is utterly delicious. I am so happy right now, speechless, what a joy.