Chicken farms fowls are horrible with all the chemicals and injections that they give to the poor animals to make them grow faster and then in the end the final consumer will ingest all the chemicals....bahhhh!!
For me chicken and eggs need to be organic, if not they don't enter in my kitchen.
I grew up having all the time organic chicken raised by my grandparents or by my dad and I never realised how spoiled I was on that time. We just take it for granted.
Then I came to Middle East and the chicken was flavourless, with a weird texture and I just realised that this was how a farm fowl chicken tasted....horrible. I stopped to consume it until the day that organic chicken started to appear and I decided to try one and yes...that was how a chicken should taste.
You may think that I am maybe a bit fundamentalist but please be aware of all the produces that you buy and even when they are organic, make some research about the producer and farm to make sure of the used farming techniques.
So now that I found a good supplier of organic chicken I do quite often roasted chicken and is a nice dish when you have friends coming over or when you want leftovers for the next day...which is all the time helpful!
The trick of this recipe is the mix of few ingredients and rub the chicken at least 15 minutes before going to the oven.
Ingredients:
- Salt
- 2 tsp of paprika (powder)
- 2 tsp of masala (powder)
- 1 tsp of turmeric (powder)
- 1/2 tsp of grounded ginger
- 4 Tbsp of olive oil
- 1/2 cup of white wine (or chicken sock)
- Fresh rosemary
Let's do it:
- Pre-heat the oven to 180 C or in gas to Mark 6
- The first thing to do is to season the chicken with salt, so with your hands rub some sea salt around the chicken
- In a bowl mix the olive oil, paprika, masala, turmeric, ginger and rosemary. Mix well all the ingredients and after pour the mixture in the chicken and once again with your hands, rub the mixture around the chicken. Note that you have to pour a bit of the mixture inside of the chicken. Let the chicken stay like this for 10-15 minutes, is usually the time of the oven to reach the desired temperature
- After the 10-15 minutes, pour 1/2 cup of white wine in the bowl where you made the previous mixture and gently pour it on the top and inside of the chicken
- Place the chicken in the oven for about 1h30 minutes, but in every 25 minutes open the oven and use a spoon to spread a bit of the sauce that will be in the tray, on the top of the chicken. In this way she will not get dry and the skin will be more tasty
- If you have a meat thermometer you can verify when is ready, as the chicken is cooked around 165 C
I made this chicken this weekend as we had some friends coming over. They really enjoyed it. I have to say that I prepared two chickens because boys tend to eat more than girls :)
As a side dish I prepared a nice salad and I roasted some sweet potatoes, with olive oil and rosemary...I love roasted sweet potato.
If you never tried it, you can make like this:
- Wash the sweet potatoes (I use the orange one), and cut them in half. This one was so big that I have to cut in 4 halfs
- Place them in a oven dish and make small cuts along the potato. Spread some olive oil on the top and some rosemary leaves
- Take it to the oven for 30-40 minutes in 180 C. The orange sweet potato a bit more time to roast but I find them really taste because I like when the potato is really smooth
It took me about 2 hours in total to prepare the entire dinner.
I started to prepare the chicken that took me 15 minutes but then I had to wait more 15 minutes before placing it in the oven and then roasting for 1h30.
While the chicken was in the oven I prepared the sweet potatoes as they need also around 40 minutes. After placing the sweet potatoes in the oven, I prepared the salad.
Time of preparation: 30 minutes to prepare the chicken + 1h30 in the oven.
2016 has been a weird year, with some bad worldwide political decisions, with never ending wars and refuges, bomb attacks in the name of religions that should aim the peace and not the war, and the lost of big musical icons, David Bowie, Frank Sinatra Jr, Prince (even if I didn't like him, he was a reference) and now Leonard Cohen.
Sometimes we look to all the world events and we feel powerless and small, really small and although we cannot change the course of the things we can try somehow to make our bubble a better place to live. We should be teaching kindness instead of greed and power, teaching equality among all, teaching that although religion is part of a society it not who we are, we should be free of thought and free of judgment.
I got really sad when I heard about Leonard Cohen death but what makes him such a big song writer and musician is the fact that he will be immortal as so many others.
Today I leave you one of my favourite songs. This song as a really nice version made by Jeff Buckley but nothing is good as the voice and soul of the greatest Leonard Cohen.
"...I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though it all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but
Hallelujah"
RIP Leonard and thank you so much for all the good music, for all the good lyrics and for all the soul that you put in your art.
So long...
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