Chicken with anchovies, lemon and rosemary
Even if you don’t like anchovies you will love this dish. The anchovies don’t add a ‘fishy’ taste at all, instead they deepen the flavours of the cooking juices and make the whole dish more complex. Even my kids – who ‘hate’ anchovies – love this.
Ingrediënten
- 8 large skin-on bone-in chicken thighs or a mixture of joints
- 8 banana shallots peeled
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 4 garlic cloves finely chopped
- really good pinch of chilli flakes
- 5 anchovies drained of oil and roughly chopped
- 3 sprigs of rosemary
- 75 ml 2½fl oz dry white wine or dry vermouth
- finely grated zest and juice of ½ unwaxed lemon
Instructies
- Trim the chicken thighs of scraggy bits of fat to make them neat.
- Quarter the shallots lengthways.
- Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/gas mark 4.
- Heat the oil in a broad shallow pan which can go on the hob and in the oven (and hold the thighs in a single layer without too much room around them).
- Quickly brown the chicken on both sides over a medium-high heat.
- You don’t want to cook it through, just get some colour on it.
- Remove the thighs and put them on a plate.
- Pour off all but 1 tbsp of the fat from the pan.
- Add the shallots to the pan and cook for about three minutes to get some colour on these as well, then add three-quarters of the garlic, the chilli and the anchovies.
- Reduce the heat right down and cook for another four minutes or so, pressing the anchovies with the back of a wooden spoon to help them ‘melt’ (they just disintegrate).
- Add the rosemary, wine and lemon juice and bring to the boil.
- Take off the heat.
- Lay the chicken thighs on top of the shallots (the chicken should be skin side up), pour any juices that have come out of the chicken into the pan as well and put into the oven for 35–40 minutes, uncovered.
- Check that the chicken is cooked through: when you pierce one of the pieces near the bone the juices that run out should be clear, with no trace of pink.
- Taste for seasoning.
- The chilli and anchovies should provide enough, but just make sure.
- Chop the lemon zest and reserved garlic together very finely and sprinkle over the top.
- Serve immediately.
