Greek lemon chicken and potatoes
One tray, into the oven, and mostly left alone
Scales up to four by using a larger tray and roughly doubling everything, though the potato may need a few extra minutes.
Greek lemon chicken and potatoes is built almost entirely by the oven: everything goes into one tray, and the stock poured in around the chicken does the work a lid usually does, keeping the tin from drying out while the potato turns soft enough to fall apart under a fork. Lemon juice and garlic go in raw and come out mellow, the acid softened by an hour of slow cooking rather than left sharp. Oregano would normally go over the top in fistfuls, chopped fresh. It stays out of this version entirely, along with anything else that would sit in visible pieces on the plate. What is left is a tray of chicken and potato with a thin, buttery, lemon-sharp sauce pooled underneath, needing very little from you beyond turning it once.
Ingredients
Contains: Milk, Celery
- 2chicken thighs, about 180 g each, bone in, skin removed
- 500 gpotato, peeled and cut into 3 cm chunks
- 2 clovegarlic, finely grated or crushed
- 200 mlclear chicken stock, home-made and strained, or a good stock cube
- 3 tbsplemon juice
- 25 gunsalted butter
- salt
Method
Heat the oven to 200°C fan (220°C). Put the chicken thighs and potato chunks in a large roasting tin, spread out in a single layer.
Scatter the garlic over the top, pour in the stock and lemon juice, and dot with the butter. Season with salt and turn everything over once so the chicken and potato are lightly coated.
Roast for 45 minutes, turning everything over halfway through and basting with the tray juices, until the chicken is cooked through with no pink at the bone and the potato is soft enough for a knife to slide in with no resistance.
If the tray looks dry before the potato is ready, add a splash more stock rather than letting it catch.
If you want more colour, turn the oven up to 220°C fan (240°C) for a final 5 to 10 minutes.
Rest for 5 minutes, then spoon the tray juices over before serving.
Watch-points
- Peel the potato before it goes in, and cut it into even 3 cm chunks so every piece finishes tender in the same time as the chicken.
- Pull the skin off the chicken thighs before they go into the tray. Chicken skin is on the avoid list, and an hour in the oven will not soften it.
- Cook the garlic soft in the tray. It should never stay raw or crisp at the edges.
- Use a stock that is clear and strained, with no vegetable pieces in it.
- Lemon juice only, no zest, in the tray.
Stoma note: The potato here thickens stoma output, the same as any dish built around it.
Make it more nourishing
- Add a tablespoon of olive oil to the tray along with the butter, for about 100 kcal across the two plates.
- Stir a tablespoon of double cream into the tray juices off the heat shortly before serving, for around 70 kcal and a softer, less sharp sauce.
- Add an extra 15 g of butter to the tray juices when you baste, which is roughly 110 kcal more.
Swaps
- Instead of chicken thighs, use chicken breast, added partway through so it does not dry out
- leaner, but needs a shorter time in the tray than the thighs
- Instead of potato, use swede or carrot, peeled and cut to the same size
- a lower-starch option if potato is not agreeing with you that day