Recipe Review: Jamie Oliver, Super Tasty Spanish Roast Chicken

Happy Easter! I thought I'd take this opportunity to premier a new feature for my blog, a recipe review.


Those that know me well know that I love to cook! Something about it just totally de-stresses me and gives me the opportunity to get in the kitchen and create something yummy!


First up, a man we all know very well if you've ever been near a TV or bookshop, Mr Jamie Oliver. I love his style of cooking, no fuss, just clean flavours combined to give the dish a touch of genius, and have you always wanting more! It being Easter weekend and all, I thought a roast might be a perfect place to start. I can't eat lamb, they are just simply TOO cute, so I went with chicken, Super Tasty Spanish Roast Chicken to be precise.

Source: magpie-mind.tumblr.com via Ali on Pinterest

Here's the link to the recipe:


http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/chicken-recipes/super-tasty-spanish-roast-chicken


And here are my thoughts:


Ingredients

These are all easy to come by and not too pricey, although I always go for Free Range/Organic chicken so this adds a couple of ££.


Method


You start by par-boiling your potatoes and preparing the chicken for the oven. 

So far, so good. I've never really done the greaseproof paper, wet and scrunch thing before so was interested to see the difference it makes.


Popped the chicken in the oven and made my gremolata.

And then, the disaster happened! Two problems:


1. My chorizo was cooking way too quickly.
2. The greaseproof paper was burning around the edges and sort of "flaking" on to the chicken and potatoes. Mmmm, not so great.


In the end, I had to majorly reduce my oven temp to ensure the chicken was cooked but throw-away my chorizo, boo! I guess it had given up it's flavour as part of the dish, but not actually getting to eat it wasn't great.


Here's the finished plate of food:

It looks pretty boring, having the chorizo on there would have definitely added an extra dimension both visually and for extra flavour.


Conclusion?


This was a bit of a let-down! Which makes me sad as anything by Jamie Oliver is usually an absolute winner. Next time, I would introduce the chorizo later in the cooking process and also maybe scrap the greaseproof paper, I still don't really understand the point.


The chicken was really tasty and tender and the potatoes had a nice, smoky flavour. So marks out of 10? This time a 6.