Portuguese Style Chicken & Chips with Veggie Slaw
Donal's Notes
Time for a fakeaway with real flavour. This is a crave worthy dinner that can be made easily with zero fuss. If spatchcocking the chicken is outside of your comfort zone ask your butcher to do it.
Instructions
Make the peri peri sauce: peel and roughly chop the red onion. Peel the garlic cloves. Roughly chop the red chilli. Deseed the red pepper and roughly chop. Roughly chop the ripe tomatoes. Cut the lemon in half.
Tip all the veg for the sauce into a food processor along with the dried oregano, granulated sugar, smoked paprika, red wine vinegar, the lemon juice and olive oil and blitz.
Tackle the chicken. Set the bird breast side down on a board. Using kitchen scissors cut down one side of the backbone, cutting through the rib bones as you go. Cut down the other side of the backbone to remove it. Turn the chicken over to have the breast facing you and using the heel of your hand press down on the breastbone of the bird to flatten. Trim off any fatty flaps of skin around the tail.
Put the chicken in the roasting tin and turn it in about half the sauce, to cover both sides. Marinate for as little as an hour but preferably overnight.
Meanwhile, heat the oven to 200C, fan 180C, gas mark 6 and prepare the potato wedges. Put a large pan of salted water onto boil. Scrub 750g potatoes clean and cut the potatoes into chunky wedges. Add to the pan of boiling water and parboil for 8 minutes. Drain in a colander and leave to steam dry for a couple of minutes. Transfer to a roasting tray and drizzle with 3-4 tbsp sunflower oil, toss to evenly coat the potatoes. Season well and roast in the preheated oven for 35-40 minutes or until beginning to turn golden brown. Turn halfway through to prevent them sticking to the bottom of the tin. Place the chicken in a roasting tin. Pour over any excess marinade. Roast the chicken for 35-40 minutes by which time the juices should run clear and the skin should be crispy.
To make the slaw: Peel and grate 2 small carrots, finely slice ½ red onion, finely slice 200g red cabbage, finely slice 200g white cabbage and chop 2 tbsp coriander.
Remove the chicken from the oven and allow to rest on a chopping board before cutting into portions. Serve alongside the slaw, wedges and the remaining peri peri sauce.
