Crispy Roast Chicken with a herby Mushroom Sauce

**COMPETITION HAS NOW ENDED**
Following on from my recent delicious chicken liver and tarragon pate post, I also created dinner for me and my dad using other goodies within my Knorr hamper, including a delicious tomato stew, which I will post up soon, which was served alongside my crispy roasted chicken with a mushroom sauce and herbed potato stack.

Being that the lovely organic Rhug estate chicken was whole, and that I didn’t want to cook the whole bird at once due not to wanting to eat it three days running, I dug out a copy of ‘the cooks book’, armed myself with poultry shears and a sharp knife, and set about properly butchering the poor bird up.

Having not done that particular kitchen task in a long time and I had forgotten how brutal it felt but it was quite satisfying to finish it and resulted in a chopping board with all its separate portions laid out neatly! It also makes the chicken go that bit further and ensures nothing goes to waste either - you know my motto by now is to not waste anything!

Serves two

Ingredients

2 Chicken leg quarters (I.e thigh and drumstick)

1 banana shallot, sliced into rounds

15 quartered small white mushrooms

2 tbsp olive oil

3 tbsp chopped curly parsley

75ml white wine

300ml chicken stock (made using a Knorr chicken stock pot)

1 heaped tsp cornflour, made into a paste with 2 tsp water - see notes below

Step one - Preheat oven to 190o

Step two - pour yourself a nice glass of wine, test for quality control - after all you want your dish to taste good! The wine in my box fitted the job perfectly, I thought it was crisp, refreshing and delicious but was not to my dads taste. Oh well more for me then!

Step 3 - For the crispy roasted chicken I started off by flouring the leg quarters, as recommended by Marco Pierre White, browned them in hot oil in a large saute pan, skin side down for just under 10 minutes, cover slightly with a lid if the oils spitting a lot, when browned place them on kitchen paper to drain.

Step 4 - Using the same pan, add a splash more oil if needed and fry the shallot and the mushrooms, until lightly golden in colour. Add the wine and bubble off for a couple of minutes, add the stock and bring to the boil, add 2 tbsp fp the parsley, stir in and then transfer the sauce to a suitable baking dish and nestle the chicken pieces on top - they should just fit inside - I used my rectangular glass pyrex roaster. Roast for approx 45 minutes or until the chicken has cooked through.

Step 5 - Make up the cornflour and water paste, this is where I made a slight error of judgement and have adjusted the quantities in the ingredients section …the sauce was a little thin for my liking and so I strained it off into a saucepan and bought it back to the boil with a tad too much cornflour..my lovely sauce become a rather thick and gloopy.... Alas, cooking is always something to learn from and improve upon, bit like life really! Garnish with the remaining parsley and serve with your choice of vegetable.

Despite the slightly hmm sauce, the chicken was gorgeously crispy, you could really tell the difference in quality of the meat and we cleaned our plates so all was not lost!

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