Friday Foods is back again! I’m ready to share my take on this delicious recipe I found in Good Housekeeping: Lemon, Pancetta and Tarragon Roast Chicken. It’s a perfect recipe for summer and has minimal ingredients. I adjusted the recipe for my dietary needs, so this is what I used to make the roast chicken.
Ingredients:
750g small waxy Potatoes, halved
20g fresh Tarragon, roughly chopped
2 tbsp Garlic-infused Olive Oil
50g plant-based Butter, softened
1 Lemon
1.4 kg Chicken
12 Pancetta slices
400g Cherry Tomatoes on the vine
Preheat your oven to 200C. Toss the potatoes with half of the tarragon, the oil and some salt and pepper in a roasting tin. The roasting tin should be large enough to hold the chicken, with some added space around it. Set aside.
In a small bowl, mix the butter, the remaining tarragon, some salt and pepper, and zest from the lemon.
On a board, remove any trussing from the chicken and pat dry. Halve the zest lemon and squeeze the juice into the chicken cavity, then tuck the halves inside the chicken. Lift up the neck flap and use your fingers to ease the skin gently away along the length of the breast.
Spread half of the flavoured butter mixture under the skin, all over the breast. Rub the remaining all over the chicken. Sit the chicken in the roasting tin with the potatoes. Lay the pancetta over the breast of the chicken.
Roast for 40 minutes. Then, turn down the oven to 180C and pour 100ml of water into the tin. Roast for 20 minutes. Take out tin and add the tomatoes. Roast for a final 20 minutes.
That’s it! The chicken comes out juicy and ready to eat! It’s a bit of work with the roasting, but I promise you’ll enjoy this recipe.
xx Hannah
Idealistic Iowan 