Welcome to Robert Walton MBE’s kitchen! Donna Ida's husband shows us how to cook Donna's roast chicken and green salad. See his recipe and watch the video below to replicate this simple, fresh and hugely flavoursome dish at home!
Donna's Roast Chicken Salad: Ingredients
For the chicken:
- Whole chicken
- Herbs: parsley, sage rosemary, thyme and oregano
- Potatoes
- Lemons
- Limes
- Pink peppercorns
- Black peppercorns
- Rock salt
For the French dressing:
- French mustard
- Olive oil
- White vinegar
- Soy sauce
For the salad:
- Gem lettuce
Dazzler Does Donna's Roast Chicken and Green Salad
Today, we’re going to do a fantastic roast chicken.
We're going to stuff it full of amazing herbs - parsley, sage rosemary and thyme - there’s a song there! And we're going to have some wonderful potatoes on the base, some lemons and limes alongside some gorgeous pink peppercorns, black peppercorns, rock salt and oregano, and we're going to throw it all together and stick it in the oven.
POTATOES
Before we do anything, we have to get our base of potatoes on our roasting tray and then we're going to put our chicken on top of that. What you want to do is get some nice slices of the potatoes, not too thin. You can do this with a potato peeler, of course, but I peel my potatoes with a knife because I want nice rounded potatoes.
I like to get that barrel shape. So how do I do that? It’s pretty easy. I just take the top and tail of each one and then just carefully, go around. I just find it a lot easier if we do it this way, but you’re wasting a tiny bit of potato.
Peel your potatoes, then slice them and put them back in the water just to get rid of that starch. Then place some on the bottom of your tray. Don’t worry too much about presentation because we’re going to put them at the base of the chicken.
You want nice chunky bits of potato. Just randomly lay them on there. Place them and just spread them out. I don't mind that there's moisture, it doesn't matter. You don't need to dry them off.
CHICKEN
Now place the chicken on there. Then it's time to prepare the chicken.
Take off the strings. You want to open the legs because you want the juices. You want the infusion of all these amazing herbs that you'll put in and for them to get into the chicken.
I love lemon in chicken, I love lime in chicken. I love to get those lovely citrusy flavours inside of the chicken, so put a lemon in there and put half a lime in there.
This is my favourite bit. You've got your rosemary, you've got your thyme, you've got your sage, and you've got your parsley. And literally stuff it in. You can use as much as you want to use, the more you use, the more flavour you’re going to get.
You now have all of the flavours infused into the chicken with all of those wonderful herbs. Now put flavours on top of the chicken. I like to just use some olive oil. By the way, you also want some olive oil on those potatoes! I love olive oil, you don't have to use it, but I want these herbs and everything to stick on.
HERBS & OLIVE OIL
You've got your herbs, you've got rock salt, pink peppercorns and oregano. Now rub those in so everything sticks. Put the olive oil on. We're using olive oil for two reasons: one, we want everything to stick on the chicken. Two, we also want to just add a little bit of moisture into those potatoes. Of course, you will have all of the juices coming out of the chicken. That will just soak into those potatoes and be amazing.
Now, we want to add a lot of flavour here. Put more oregano on, and add black pepper, which is vital for chicken. If this doesn't already whet your appetite, I don't know what will! Remember, if it looks a picture going in, It's going to look a picture coming out.
COOKING TIME
Now put your chicken is now in the oven. How long is the chicken going to stay in the oven for? Well, how big is your chicken and how hot is your oven? I think it's going to be between one hour 45 minutes and two hours for my chicken.
FRENCH DRESSING
Your chicken is going to be resting on the potatoes and now you're going to make a fabulous French dressing. I've been making French dressing for a long time. I just love the French dressing that you have when you're in the south of France. A nice creamy, yellowy dressing and it's just gorgeous. I’ve been doing it the same way for years, but you can do it differently in your own way.
In my French dressing, I use olive oil. French dressing is very simple. It's 2/3rds olive oil,1/3rd French mustard and vinegar. Simple as that. Put some white vinegar in and taste. Now squeeze a little bit of lime and a bit of lemon, no seeds, or pips. Now, French mustard. You've got 1/3 white vinegar and Dijon mustard as a rule of thumb.
Now a little trick: a dash of soy sauce. You have to add some seasoning, salt and pepper. That's your French dressing.
TAKE THE POTATOES OUT
You don’t want your potatoes to burn or disintegrate. So take your potatoes out and put the chicken back in for another 15-20 minutes. Make sure that your chicken is cooked through. Test with a skewer into the leg to make sure there’s no blood coming out. You need to have your chicken cooked through beautifully.
Then put the potatoes back in the oven on the base, just for five minutes just to warm through. You don't want to put them in the microwave, you want to keep the crispiness, but also the moisture that's in there already. Then take the chicken out of the oven. With 15 minutes to go, it’s time to do the salad. This whole meal is very French in its origin!
SALAD
You want to put together the final bit of this gorgeous French summer meal, roast chicken on fantastic potatoes with a very simple green salad. A green salad, when you go to France, is lettuce. Get some gem lettuce and just lay it out. Very simply. And then you've got a fantastic French dressing, which is thickening up, and when you see it poured on, it will look like you have just ordered a meal on the Côte d'Azur.
You can also do a little bit of decoration for your chicken. So just a little bit of mise-en-place.
Take your rosemary and thyme and put that around the chicken. You've now finished the presentation of lettuce.
It doesn't get any more simple than that. Put on some more of that incredible French dressing! And that is what you see in the south of France.
You’ve done your prep, you've done your salad, you’ve done your French dressing, you've done your potatoes. Now for the main event. Take the chicken out of the oven. The herbs you put inside the chicken have done their job now, so you don't need those. Pull those out. And no need to use any of the juices.
You should be able to smell all of those herbs and the way that’s infused. Take your lemon out with a fork. Then put the chicken on a serving dish.
Let that rest for just a few minutes then put the potatoes around it, and then present it. Chicken’s done, ready to go, rested beautifully, looks amazing. Look at all those incredible herbs on top.
Alright, so now to put potatoes on the dish. Look how simple this is: potatoes, chicken lettuce, nothing but flavour. You can smell the flavour, you can smell everything going on here.
All you need to do with the potatoes is pile them up on the side.Try a little dried oregano on them.
So all you have to do now is present. For me, I use some fresh rosemary, some fresh sage, fresh thyme from the garden.
Amazing chicken with these stunning potatoes. I can't wait to eat! Cheers everybody, enjoy my simple, tasty Donna’s roast chicken, the most gorgeous French green salad with an amazing vinaigrette.
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