TOMMY’S TWIST

Michelin-starred chef Tommy Banks gives his roast chicken a curry makeover

Tommy Banks gives roast chicken a curry makeover

Food myth has it that the popular rich and mildly spiced curry, butter chicken, was invented when an Indian chef dipped some leftover chicken into some spiced tomatoey roasting juices. Whether this story is true or not, it’s what inspired me to come up with this twist on the roast chicken, and one of the best sauces that’s ever been poured over it.

One-pan roast butter chicken

I love to serve this with onion bhajis (see bbcgoodfood.com for a recipe), but it’s up to you whether you treat the chicken as a curry and serve it with rice and naan bread, or go for a delicious culture clash and serve it as a roast with your favourite Sunday lunch sides.

SERVES 4 PREP 30 mins COOK 1 hr 10 mins EASY

1 lemon, halved

1 medium chicken

For the curry butter

100g soft unsalted butter

2 garlic cloves, crushed small piece ginger, finely grated

1 tsp each garam masala, turmeric and ground cloves handful coriander leaves, chopped

For the sauce

3 garlic cloves, finely grated small piece ginger, finely grated

4 cardamom pods

4 cloves

1 tsp fennel seeds

2 tsp garam masala

1 tsp hot chilli powder

2 tsp turmeric

500ml passata

200ml double cream

1 Heat oven to 220C/200C fan/gas 7. Put the lemon halves in the chicken cavity. Stir all the ingredients for the butter together and season with salt and lots of pepper. Use your fingers to stuff the butter under the skin and smear it all over the chicken. Place the chicken in a flameproof roasting tin, on a trivet, if you have one. Roast for 20 mins, then turn the oven down to 180C/160c/gas 4. Continue to roast for 40 mins or until the chicken is cooked through. Remove it from the tin and leave to rest while you make the sauce.

2 If your roasting tin is flameproof, place it directly on the heat, if not, scrape all the buttery goodness from the tin into a saucepan and set over a low heat. Gently sweat the garlic and ginger in the chicken butter. Scatter in the cardamom, cloves and fennel seeds and cook for 2 mins, then add the ground spices and toast them for another 2 mins. Pour the passata in and gently reduce by half before adding the cream and reducing by a third. To finish the sauce, pour in the resting juices, season and add a squeeze of the roasted lemon from the cavity of the chicken. Carve the chicken and serve with the sauce and anything else you want to dip into it – I like onion bhajis on the side.

GOOD TO KNOW gluten free

PER SERVING 869 kcals • fat 70g • saturates 36g • carbs 8g • sugars 6g • fibre 2g • protein 50g • salt 0.8g

Tommy Banks is chef-owner at The Black Swan in Oldstead (blackswanoldstead. co.uk) and Roots in York (rootsyork.co.uk). He is also a judge on BBC Two’s Family Cooking Showdown. His book, Roots (£25, Seven Dials), is out now. @tommybanks8