Chicken, lemon and fennel traybake recipe
1st Jan 2015 Recipes
This tasty chicken, lemon and fennel traybake could feed an army of hungry friends and family, but the recipe is surprisingly simple. Here's how to create this hearty meal yourself.
Ingredients:
- 2 fennel bulbs
- 1 lemon
- 600g potatoes (preferably new potatoes, though any will do)
- 2 sprigs of rosemary
- 3tbsps olive oil
- 4 large chicken thighs, (skin on, bone in)
- 2 garlic bulbs
- 2tbsps crème fraîche
- Optional serve: baby leaf herb salad
Method:
- Preheat the oven to 180C.
- Cut the cylinder tubers off the fennel. Pick off the green fronds and set them aside to add to the herb salad later.
- Next, slice off the base of the fennel bulb, quarter and roughly pull apart the layers. Put them in a baking tray along with the cylindrical fennel pieces.
- Quarter the lemon and then either half or quarter the potatoes, so that they’re similar sizes to the lemon quarters. Add the potato chunks to the tray along with the lemon quarters and rosemary, then use your hands to toss with 2 tbsps of the olive oil and season with a dash of salt so everything is coated.
- Drizzle the remaining 1 tbsp of olive oil over the chicken thighs and massage a dash more salt into the chicken skin. Nestle the thighs into the bed of vegetables. Finally, chop the garlic in half horizontally and arrange the four halves (cut side up) alongside the chicken.
- Put the traybake in the oven and roast for 40 minutes, until the chicken is cooked through, the lemon and garlic are both squidgy, and the fennel is soft and slightly caramelised.
- Plate up each portion, topping with a lemon quarter and half a garlic clove—so each diner can squeeze the sticky cloves out themselves.
- Add the crème fraîche to the leftover juices in the roasting tray, bring to a simmer and spoon the juices over each portion of chicken and then serve.
- Add the feathery green fennel fronds to the salad, dress (see right) and serve as a side dish.
