Chicken with torn sourdough, sherry, raisins & bitter leaves
SERVES 4
There’s a lot going on here, though it’s a very simple dish. The sourdough pieces end up crunchy with a moist, slightly boozy, garlic-infused underside, there is sweetness from the sherry and raisins, bitterness from the leaves and saltiness from the bacon.
It’s all about contrast. Use watercress – just arrange small fistfuls among the cooked chicken – if you aren’t keen on bitter leaves, and up the chilli if you want more heat.
175g sourdough bread, torn into pieces
roughly 5cm square
450g small waxy potatoes, scrubbed
and cut into chunks
1 large onion, cut into wedges
6 thyme sprigs
2 teaspoons chilli flakes
1 head of garlic, cloves separated but not peeled 150g pancetta or bacon, in one piece 8 good-sized skin-on bone-in chicken thighs,
excess skin neatly trimmed
2 tablespoons sherry vinegar
220ml amontillado sherry
5 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil 150g spring onions, trimmed
50g raisins
100g bitter salad leaves (such as radicchio,
chicory, curly endive, dandelion or treviso) 25g toasted pinenuts
Preheat the oven to 190°C fan.
Put the bread, potatoes, onion, thyme, chilli and garlic cloves into a large roasting tin. Cut the pancetta or bacon into meaty chunks and add them to the tin with the chicken. Pour on the sherry vinegar, 70ml of the sherry and 4 tablespoons olive oil. Season and toss everything around with your hands, finishing with the chicken skin side up. Make sure the bread isn’t too exposed, or lying at the edges, or it will become too dark. Roast for 25 minutes – tossing the ingredients around once, but making sure the chicken is still skin side up – then add another 50ml sherry.
Mix the spring onions in a bowl with the remaining olive oil and add them to the tin, too, laying them on top of the vegetables. Return to the oven and roast for a final 15 minutes. Pour the remaining sherry into a small saucepan with the raisins and bring to just under the boil. Leave these to sit, then add them to the roasting tin 5 minutes before the end of the cooking time. Transfer everything to a large warmed platter or broad shallow serving dish (unless you’re happy to take the roasting tin to the table) and mix in whichever of the leaves you want to use (or just serve them on the side).
Throw on the pinenuts and serve.