Ready to Roast Chicken Part 1

Oh hello, vegetables, it’s been a while…

After a weekend of a Super Extra Bonus Party gig in Andrew’s Lane Theatre and a cackle-and-dirty-joke filled hen party, plus a massive and rather delicious Indian meal on Monday (too dark to take photos!), vegetables were most certainly needed by Tuesday in icanhascook HQ.

I also thought I’d try out a pre-roasted free-range chicken from M&S. Just to see if it was any cop. This was to be in no way a substitute for proper roast chickens at home, but I thought it would be handy to know if a pre-roasted chicken was decent enough should one want an easy option mid-week.

I bought a free range whole Oakham chicken for just over ten euro. The chicken was nearly fully cooked and only required 30 minutes in the oven at a high heat to finish off the process.

I chopped it in half and put one half in the oven, and one half in the fridge to be used for a second meal.

Yeah…it was about as dry as it looks in this photo! Not totally unbearable though. Just a bit meh.

Before I tell you about the makings of the side dish of couscous, I’ll just point out that the chicken was fine but very, very dry. This could possibly be helped by squeezing a load of lemon juice over the chicken before you pop it in the oven.

Obviously, there is no substitute for a fresh roast chicken, but this was passable and if you really want some roast chicken during the week but lack a spare two and a half hours, I’d say go for this option. But not in a very enthusiastic manner. There would be a good bit of ‘meh’ about the recommendation.

Still, we got two fairly decent meals out of it. Part 2 was much more fulfilling…more on that to come!

What you need for Aoife Mc’s Couscous for 2 or 3

1 red onion, peeled and sliced roughly into chunks

1 courgette, washed and sliced into chunks

1 red pepper, washed, deseeded and sliced into chunks

About 100g of couscous

Around 500ml of vegetable stock

The juice of half a lime

For the couscous dressing

(I decided to try Jamie Oliver’s lovely red chilli dressing from one of his tomato salads in Jamie At Home)

1 red chilli, deseeded and very finely chopped

1 part red wine vinegar

3 or four parts olive oil

1 glove of garlic, grated

First of all, pour your boiling hot vegetable stock over your couscous in a big bowl. I like to leave the couscous for ages, at least 25 minutes as it really helps the end result. Just don’t forget to give it a fluff with a fork after about 10 minutes, so it doesn’t turn into a big chunk of couscous.

Put all your chopped vegetables in a big baking tray and glug a good load of olive oil over the top, and season with salt n peppa. Put it into the oven at around 180 degrees C for around 15 or 20 minutes. You’ll know when they’re done because they’ll be sizzling away and they’ll be just starting to go black around the edges. Give them a poke with a fork to make sure.

While your veg are cooking, mix together the red chilli, olive oil, red wine vinegar and grated garlic to make your delicious dressing. I’ve used this dressing for loads of green salads, especially ones involving mozzarella, and it’s lovely. I wasn’t sure if it was going to work with this couscous but in the end it really did!

When the veg are done, take them out of the oven and let them cool a bit. You can mix the dressing and the lime juice into the couscous, which by now has been sitting for the desirable length of time and will be good and fluffy. Once you’ve given all of that a good stir, mix in your roasted vegetables.

That’s it! I had a bit of the roast chicken on the side, and it was only at this point that I squeezed a bit of lemon juice over it. It was fine, but the couscous was the main star of the meal.

Go you, couscous!

MP3

While I was cooking, we were listening to Brooklyn outfit Grizzly Bear’s up-coming album Veckatimest, which will be released in Ireland next week. This band provoke otherworldly levels of adoration from their fans, and not undeservedly so. This album in particular is a real grower. On first listen, it seems that there are only three really good songs on it, but something about it makes you want to return for a second listen and it’s about on the third listen that you go…ohhhhh riiiighhhttt! It’s really good. Apparently, they are amaaaaaazing live.

Here they are on Jools Holland playing my personal favourite ‘Two Weeks’ and ‘While You Wait For The Others’ which are both on the new album.