My Mum knows a thing or two about feeding the masses.

Many of my fondest childhood memories revolve around her catering huge family parties and events. She makes it look so easy, and I’m sure I learnt the pleasures of cooking for others partly through watching her bask in the warm glow of feeding friends and our huge extended family over the years.

Mum knows how to double, or even triple, a recipe without ruining a dish. Her Coronation Chicken is so legendary, people have been known to enquire as to whether it’s on the menu immediately after receiving an invitation.

When she and my Step-Dad married, she cooked a huge casserole of beef with prunes for their guests, which she served with more jacket potatoes than I’ve ever seen at one meal. She was able to leave it all cooking away in the oven while we were at the registry office. It was the perfect fare for their chilly, December wedding.
The well worn, volcanic orange Le Creuset casserole dishes that my Mother has always cooked with are, in my mind, synonymous with her epic spreads and legendary diner parties. As such, any recipe that calls for me to bring out my own cast iron pots instantly makes me feel like my Mum – in a good way. It’s grown up cooking, comforting, and filled with love.

The simplicity of a meal that requires only a few ingredients and my biggest Le Creuset appeals to me greatly, as does the ‘quick, quick, slow’ of it’s preparation. A dish that needs two hours in the oven could never be considered fast food, yet there is something incredibly freeing about slipping a pot in the oven and leaving it be all afternoon.

Perfect for lazy Sundays, this Spanish Pot Roast Chicken will fill your home with the most comforting of aromas…

You will need:

3 onions

3 carrots

3-4 large potatoes, peeled

1 whole bulb of garlic

4 tomatoes

3 teaspoons fennel seeds

2 heaped teaspoons smoked sweet paprika

2 tablespoons of olive oil

1 whole chicken, 1.5-2kg in weight

2 tablespoons sherry vinegar

250ml white wine

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

  1. Heat the oven to 190C/375F/gas mark 5
  2. Quarter the onions {no need to peel them}. Cut the carrots into long battons and the potatoes into large chunks. Slice the bulb of garlic across and quarter the tomatoes.
  3. Put all the vegetables in the bottom of a large casserole withe fennel seeds, 1 tablespoon of the olive oil and 1 teaspoon of the paprika. Season well and stir.
  4. Rub the remaining oil and paprika into the chicken along with some salt and pepper. At the risk of sounding terribly gruesome, I tend to crack the chicken’s backbone to make sure it’ll fit comfortably inside the casserole. Place the bird on top of the vegetables and pour in the vinegar and white wine.
  5. Cook in the oven for one hour, covered, then remove the lid and cook for another 30 minutes to one hour to brown the chicken and, depending on its size, ensure it is cooked through.

There are a number of ways to vary this dish. You can omit the potatoes and serve it with rice or pasta instead, and some added chunks of chorizo mixed in with the vegetable would also be delicious. Any leftovers are great whizzed up into soup if you add a little extra liquid in the form of some stock, and maybe even a dash of cream.

Recipe adapted from Leon: Naturally Fast Food Book 2, which I cannot recommend highly enough.

What have you been cooking lately?

Love Audrey xxx

PS. For reference, the Le Creuset pictured is the 24cm Round Casserole in blue. I also have the 20cm version, as well as the 30cm Shallow Casserole and a small cast iron saucepan which I’m not certain they make anymore. Le Creuset is expensive, but well worth the investment in my opinion. Mine are over 10 years old already, and my Mother’s are in excess of 30. I’m not affiliated with the brand in any way, I just love my pots!

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