Honey & Lemon Chicken

I absolutely love this recipe.  I love the way the lemon juice caramelises in the roasting tin - and in doing so, it caramelises onto the chicken and the potatoes which are roasting and just absorbing all that lovely lemon juice and honey which has been infused with rosemary and garlic.  With the melted butter, it just winds up with a gorgeusly chickeny, roast potatoey, lemony melange that makes my mouth water.

Son and hubby both decided that it was just "okay", but I am afraid it is going to re-appear at some point in the distant future, because it is just too gorgeous to ignore.  We'll have to call this one a "Mummy Supper" and everyone else will just have to suffer it.  *chuckle*

There aren't many that I insist on cooking, and I do try to avoid potatoes, but I am afraid I just enjoy this one too much.  You need to use a BIG roasting tin so as to give everything room to manoeuver, or it will braise too much instead of roasting.

HONEY & LEMON CHICKEN (serves 3)

Ingredients :

2 lemons, 1 zested and juiced, the other simply juiced

50g butter

3 tbsp clear honey

leaves from 4 rosemary sprigs

2 garlic cloves , finely chopped

4-5 chicken breasts, without skin, cut into biggish goujon shapes

400-500g potatoes , peeled and cut into smallish chunks

green salad , to serve

Method :

Preheat the oven to 200C/Gas 6/fan180C.

Put the lemon juice into a bowl, together with the butter, honey, rosemary, garlic and salt and pepper then microwave for a minute or so, until the butter melts and it smells fragrant.

Place the potatoes into the roasting tin and drizzle with lemon butter to coat evenly.

Add the chicken to the remainder of the lemon butter and set aside.

Roast the potatoes for 15 minutes.

Add the chicken and the rest of the lemon butter to the roasting tin.  Spread the chicken so that it lays in individual pieces, or it won’t cook evenly.

Roast for another 30-40 minutes, turning after the first 20.  Don’t worry if there is an awful lot of juice in the pan – there’s supposed to be!

Serve with a green salad, or with carrots, peas & broccoli.