Whole Roasted Chicken with Black Bean Ratatouille
Serves: 4
Time: 45 minutes
Tonight’s dinner might not be the prettiest of the bunch but it sure does win in the flavour department. Plus this might just be one of the fastest ways to roast a whole chicken. Because it has a very similar base to the meatballs, it’s also going to be a time saver for tomorrow night’s dinner. Winning!
Side note: if you are feeding little people you might want to turn this dinner into chicken quesadillas for them instead with some cheese - that’s what I did for my little boy as sadly I knew there was no way he would eat the bean mix.
Whole butterflied chicken
You can find free range, skin on, boneless butterflied chickens at...you guessed it, my favourite supermarket Harris Farm. Both Coles and Woolies only have the marinated versions (which is totally fine if you're not fussed on a bit of extra flavour but just be mindful of what's in that marinade. (I'm thinking there will be a lot of sugar and some random numbers in the ingredients list). If you're savvy with a knife, you could just get a whole chicken and de bone it yourself.
Leftovers
Leftovers for lunch are exactly the same as dinner, or you could take the child friendly option and turn your lunch into chicken quesadillas instead; super easy to achieve with a sandwich press.
What you'll need
1 whole butterflied chicken all bones removed.
1 small brown onion
4 cloves of garlic
8 sprigs of thyme or oregano
1 cup of red wine
3 cans of whole peeled tomatoes
1 large eggplant
1 large zucchini
3 Roma tomatoes
1 can of black beans
2 tablespoons of small black kalamata olives pitted
greek basil for garnish (optional)
lemon (optional)
From the pantry
olive oil
salt and pepper
Optional Extras For Lunch
wraps
cheese
Prep and Cook
Preheat Oven to 200c
Make Sauce (You will be splitting this sauce in half for your meatballs)
Finely dice (brunoise) your onion and garlic.
Finely chop down the thyme, removing any really large stalks. Reserve 1/3 of your chopped thyme to sprinkle over your chicken.
Heat a tablespoon of oil in a large pot and sauté onion, garlic and thyme until soft.
Add your red wine and reduce by at least half.
Add your tomatoes, crushing them with your hand as you go, then swill each can out with around 1/3 of a can of cold water and add this to your pot mix.
Bring everything up to the boil, season well with salt and pepper then turn down to simmer away gently.
Roast Eggplant
Cut your eggplant into chunky pieces about the size of your thumb then toss in a lot of oil; you want to make sure that there are no dry white patchy areas.
Season well and put on a tray lined with paper (when you transfer from the bowl to the tray, don’t tip the eggplant out, use your hands or a spoon so that any extra oil that hasn’t soaked up remains in the bowl and doesn’t flood your tray).
Bake in the oven for 20 minutes.
Roast Tomatoes
Cut tomatoes in half, then each halve into 3’s and place on an oven tray with baking paper.
Very lightly drizzle with oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper and pop in the oven for 10 minutes.
Roasting Chicken
If you have an awesome oven that can take a lot of trays at one time and still cook perfectly evenly, then I'm jealous and pay no more attention here. If you have an oven like mine that struggles under pressure, you are going to want to make sure your tomatoes and eggplant have finished cooking and are out of the oven before you put in your chicken.
Roast Chicken
Sprinkle the chicken with fresh chopped thyme and a really good sprinkling of salt and pepper.
In a large fry pan that can go in the oven, heat up 1 teaspoon of olive oil. Make sure the pan is really hot before you place the chicken skin side down and cook like this for 3 minutes.
Flip the chicken and cook for a further 2 minutes, then pop the chicken into the oven and roast for 10 minutes.
While the Chicken Cooks
Check your tomato sauce - we want the sauce to have reduced down a bit and be looking more of a dark rich red. You might need to add a touch more salt and pepper if it still tastes a bit acidic.
When you are happy with your sauce, use a ladle to remove half the mix, putting it into a container to cool. Place half the mix into the fridge to use later in the week for your meatballs.
Chop your zucchini into a similar size to your eggplant and add to the remaining tomato sauce.
Cook till soft. Add your eggplant, beans and olives and stir together well. Simmer gently.
Add the roasted tomatoes just before you are ready to serve as you want to still see the shape.
Slice Chicken
Before you slice the chicken just check to make sure the juices run clear, then remove from the oven and let the chicken rest for about 5 minutes.
I like to use a bread knife to carve nice even slices
Plate it Pretty
Ladle the bean mix into shallow bowls, fan the chicken out just slightly off centre and sprinkle over the top with some fresh greek basil.
Serve with a wedge of lemon on the side.
What is Greek basil?
Greek basil is a very pretty little leaf that looks a similar size to all the trendy micro herbs that are out at the moment. You will find it comes as a small plant and is very thick and lush. It is very happy to live on a windowsill and will last for ages. The perfect little garnish herb.
Lunch tomorrow
If you are taking the child friendly suggestion then spread some greek yoghurt across half of your wraps, spoon some bean mix over and finely slice the leftover chicken pieces and sprinkle with grated cheese. Fold in half and toast like a panini till it is melted deliciousness.