Info
- Course: Main Course
- Skill Level: Moderate
- Cost: Inexpensive
- Favorited: 419 Times
Slow-Roasted Garlic and Lemon Chicken
- + New List
Cookbook
Recipe
This is one of those recipes you just can’t make once: that’s to say, after the first time, you’re hooked. It is gloriously easy: you just put everything in the roasting dish and leave it to cook in the oven, pervading the house, at any time of year, with the summer scent of lemon and thyme—and of course, mellow, almost honeyed garlic. I got the idea of it from those long-cooked French chicken casseroles with whole garlic cloves and just wanted to spritz it up with lemon for summer. The wonderful thing about it is that you turn the lemon from being a flavoring to being a major player; left-in chunks to cook slowly in the oven so they seem almost to caramelize, and you can eat them, skin, pith and all, their sour bitterness sweetened in the heat.
Yield : Serves 4–6
Ingredients
- 1 chicken (approx. 3½ to 4 pounds), cut into 10 pieces
- 1 head garlic, separated into unpeeled cloves
- 2 unwaxed lemons, cut into chunky eighths
- Small handful fresh thyme
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 10 tablespoons white wine
- Black pepper
Directions
Preheat the oven to 300°F.
Put the chicken pieces into a roasting pan and add the garlic cloves, lemon chunks and the thyme; just roughly pull the leaves off the stalks, leaving some intact for strewing over later. Add the oil and using your hands mix everything together, then spread the mixture out, making sure all the chicken pieces are skin-side up.
Sprinkle over the white wine and grind on some pepper, then cover tightly with foil and put in the oven to cook, at flavor-intensifyingly low heat, for 2 hours.
Remove the foil from the roasting pan, and turn up the oven to 400°F. Cook the uncovered chicken for another 30–45 minutes, by which time the skin on the meat will have turned golden brown and the lemons will have begun to scorch and caramelize at the edges.
I like to serve this as it is, straight from the roasting pan: so just strew with your remaining thyme and dole out.
© 2003 Nigella Lawson
Nutritional Information
Nutrients per serving (% daily value)
This recipe serves 6. Nutritional information is based on using a 3 1/2 pound chicken.
441kcal (22%)
54mg (5%)
33mg (55%)
69mcg RAE (2%)
399mg
42mg
31g
0g
2g
6g
121mg (40%)
116mg (5%)
8g (39%)
31g (48%)
2mg (11%)
Would you like to leave a comment about this recipe?
Notify me of new comments on this recipe.
Add comment
tpippin
02.17.12 Flag commentThis recipe is so great. I recommend adding a bit of salt to make it perfect.
Christie23
11.25.11 Flag commentI use this recipe often and the flavors are complex and fragrant. A household favorite.
ChelleW
01.13.10 Flag commentWow! Such a simple preparation, but the flavors that come out of this chicken are incredible. This is not the technically complex french cuisine, but a simple rustic dish that is both delicious and satisfying. I served my chicken over a bed of sauteed small potatoes and all the juices from the chicken were soaked up by them. This is definitely a recipe I will use again and again.