This is a dish of bright, vivid colour and bold flavours. Onions, sun-dried tomatoes, mushrooms and preserved lemon make a vegetable sauce for the chicken with wine, garlic and olives adding tastes of the Mediterranean. Serve with crusty bread so you don’t waste any of the delicious juices.
Remember, you can get all of your ingredients for this Mediterranean Chicken recipe from the Camden Produce Markets.
1.6 kg chicken
2 sprigs marjoram
handful thyme
4 cloves garlic
5 tablespoons olive oil
1 preserved lemon, rind only, thinly sliced
175g pitted black olives
250g button mushrooms
40g sun-dried tomatoes
1 medium onion, sliced
175 ml white wine
salt & pepper
Heat oven to gas mark 7(230*C). Season the chicken inside and out. Mash the herbs and garlic with 1 tablespoon oil to form a paste. Slide your fingers carefully between the skin and flesh of the chicken and rub paste evenly over breasts. Put half the lemon slices, half the olives and half the mushrooms in the cavity. Put bird in a heavy casserole. Scatter round the tomatoes, onions, remaining lemon, olives and mushrooms and pour over wine. Pour olive oil over the bird and roast, basting very often, for about 1 1/4 hours. Make gravy from pan juices.
