Roast Moroccan Chicken

RECIPE BY SALLIE HARVEY
PICTURE BY RICHARD CORNISH

This month’s LOST chef is Sallie Harvey. She is a magnificent cook and sings like an angel. She lives in Basalt and has a passionate love affair for the food of Morocco. Her latest venture is SOUQ where she will come to your home and cook a magnificent Moroccan feast. 

I love going to the spice shops in the markets at Marakesh where you’re hit with this overwhelming wall of aroma. Saharan cumin, pungent ground ginger and that heady mystery that is frankincense. I ask the spice master to mix me some chicken spice mix  to my taste which is based on turmeric with complimentary aromas of ginger and fennel. You can make this mix and use it to make with marinade for chicken pieces.

This recipe makes a great roast chook but please feel free to chop the chicken into pieces and slow cook it in a tajine, or heavy based pot, with the vegetables in some chicken stock. (If you’re using one of Bruce Burton’s magnificent birds from Milking Yard Farm then this is definitely what you will need to do).

INGREDIENTS

Chicken

1 tablespoon ground turmeric

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper

½ Teaspoon ground ginger

½ Teaspoon ground fennel seeds

½ Teaspoon ground fenugreek seeds 

Pinch saffron thread

125ml extra virgin olive oil

bunch coriander

handful fennel fronds

1 medium onion, peeled and quartered 

2/3 cup chopped preserved lemon

8 small kipfler potatoes, washed

8 small carrots, trimmed and washed

1 large FREE RANGE chicken

Salad

1 large cucumber, medium chopped 

1 red onion, finely diced

1 yellow capsicum, finely diced

3 tomatoes, finely diced

3 dill cucumbers, finely diced

juice of a small lemon

extra virgin olive oil 

salt, pepper, sugar  

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METHOD

Preheat the oven to 240C. 

Mix together the spices in a bowl. Add the extra virgin olive oil and mix. Pick the leaves from the coriander and set aside. Add the coriander roots and stems to the bowl with the fennel fronds, quartered onion and half the preserved lemon. 

In a large baking tray lay out the potatoes and carrots with the rest of the preserved lemon. Cover with water. Stuff the chicken with the fennel, onion, coriander and lemon mix, squeezing the oil out as you will need this to cover the chook. Rub the chicken with the season oil and place breast down on the vegetables. Roast for 15 minutes or so until the skin is brown. Turn breast up and cook for a further 15 minutes or until the skin is brown. Reduce heat to 100C. 

While the chicken is roasting make the salad by placing the chopped cucumber, onion, capsicum, tomatoes and dill with half of the coriander leaves, the lemon juice, extra virgin olive oil a pinch of salt and pepper and sugar to taste. 

Cook the chook for a further hour or until the flesh is cooked. Remove from the oven and allow the chicken to rest. Dress with the remaining coriander leaves. Enjoy with some bread or even a bowl of couscous. 

To book Sallie and one of her SOUQ feasts, call 0409 339 308.