Tray-baked Chicken and Dressed Potatoes

Every so often I enjoy making a nice home cooked meal for some uni friends and for recipes I always turn to 'Jamie's 30 Minute Meals'. This book has yet to fail and everything in it is easy, cheap and lovely to eat.

 

 Tray-baked chicken with dressed potatoes and salad

The original recipe states to use skinless chicken breasts, but I find that breast pieces are too dry, so I used chicken thigh fillets. Therefore, in this case I allocated 2 thigh fillets, per individual.

Tray-baked Chicken

Ingredients (Serves 5)

Dried oregano/oregano leaves

Sweet Paprika

Butter (approximately 100g)

10 chicken thigh fillets

2 lemons

600g cherry tomatoes on vine (I couldn't find those so I used 2 punnets of boxed cherry tomatoes)

10 rashers of bacon (if possible get on the striped/streaky part - if not then cut the bacon in half so that the middle bacon is separate from the bacon streaks.)

Rosemary

Method (I did this in 2 batches)

1. Wash the chicken thigh fillets and remove any fatty parts.

2. Drizzle with olive oil.

3. Preheat oven to 120 degrees Celsius.

4. On a large piece of greaseproof paper, sprinkle a good pinch salt & pepper, along with dried oregano leaves and sweet paprika.

5. Roll the chicken thigh fillets in the flavours.

6. In a large frying pan drizzle over some olive oil and a knob of butter (around 50g)

7. Add the chicken to the hot pan and fry for 4 to 5 minutes, or until golden on both sides.

 

8. While chicken is cooking, get a nice roasting tray and quarter 1 lemon and 1 punnet of tomatoes and chuck them on the tray.
9. Using tongs, arrange the chicken on the tray and a lay/wrap a piece of bacon around each piece of chicken.
10. Still using the frying pan, add sprigs of rosemary to fuse with the juices in the pan and pour over the chicken in the tray. 
NOTE: If there aren't any juices left in the pan add more butter (50g).

11. Cook in the oven for at least 15-20 minutes, ensuring that the chicken is cooked through.

Finished product! =D

Dressed Potatoes

While the chicken was cooking I started on the potatoes.

Ingredients (serving 5)
2 sweet potatoes
4 small to medium potatoes (white-washed ones)
Half a lemon
1 fresh red chilli
Bunch of coriander
100g of feta cheese

Method
1. Peel and wash the potatoes,
2. Cut the potatoes in chunks and place in a large microwave-safe bowl with half a lemon.
3. Wrap in cling-wrap/film and microwave on full for 15 minutes.
4. Check the potatoes are cooked through, and using tongs squeeze over the lemon.

5. Using a fork, crush all the potatoes together, leaving it a bit chunky.
6. Finely chop coriander, chilli and feta cheese and add to potatoes.
7. Mix all together.

To finish off I made a basic salad with a salad mix, cherry tomatoes, cucumber and corn.

Dinner is served!

Good food, good times!