Chickpea stuffed chicken roast

  • Ali

 

Sometimes a good old Sunday Roast is just what you fancy. This was an experiment which was a huge success. Expect to see the chickpea stuffing coming up in many guises as I experiment with stuffing chicken breasts with a meditarean version too.  I love roast vegetables and while Miss H has been reticent of late this was a real hit - possbly because there wasn't a roasted courgette in sight! You can experiment with anything you have in the friedge, roast cauliflower would work well I think. 

Serves 4

Ingredients

  • 1 large chicken about 2 kg
  • 5cm fresh turmeric, grated
  • 2 tbsp raw honey
  • 1 x 400g can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
  • 1 garlic clove, crushed
  • 1 rosemary sprig, leaves picked off the stem
  • 1 small handful of fresh parsley
  • 1 ½ lemons
  • 1 large onion cut into wedges ( about 8)
  • 300 ml vegetable stock
  • Olive oil
  • Sea salt flakes and freshly ground black pepper

Method

  1. Pre-heat the oven to 200C/180C fan/Gas mark 6
  2. Rub half the turmeric and all of the honey into the skin (you may want to don rubber kitchen gloves for this as, otherwise, you will stain your fingers yellow). Season with salt and pepper
  3. Put the chick peas, garlic, rosemary, parsley, the remainder of the turmeric, plus the juice of 1 of the lemons into a food processor and blitz. I used the Nutribullet. Season with salt and pepper, then stuff the chicken with the mixture. Plug the hole with the half of lemon.
  4. Place the onion wedges in the bottom of the roasting tray and place the chicken on top. Add the stock to the tray and bake for about 75 minutes, basting every 10 minutes with the vegetable stock juices which will be permeated with turmeric and honey. After about 45 mins, it is possible that the skin might tend to over brown so, at this point, cover with foil to stop it blackening.
  5. To check to see if the chicken is done, either insert a knife into the leg joint to see if the juices run clear, or use a meat thermometer.
  6. When done remove from the oven, cover with tin foil and rest for half the cooking time. The chicken will continue to cook due to the residual heat but won't go dry as the juices will stay in the meat. 
  7. Serve with vegetables of your choice – we served it with roasted root vegetables, sweet potato wedges, carrots, oca roots (a lemony potato which was in our orgnic box from Riverford Organic Farms this week) and the onion wedges.

To make a gravy

  1. Add a little cornflour to the meat juices left int he baking tray  – just  a heaped teaspoon of cornflour and about 100ml cold water or vegetable stock (you could use arrowroot in the same way) to the juices from the chicken, heated up on the hob, and drizzled it over the carved chicken.