Jewish chicken with tzimmes
I first had this for lunch at the home of a Jewish friend who knew I would love the sweet-savoury flavours (at first, I thought it was a Moroccan dish). The word tzimmes means ‘to make a fuss over somebody or something’ so I suppose that’s why it’s such a mixture. It’s a dish of root vegetables and fresh and dried fruit that is cooked around the chicken – and is very sweet – but you can tone it down by adding less dried fruit and replacing some of the sweeter vegetables (the carrots and sweet potatoes) with ordinary potatoes, if you want. (Carrots are very important at Jewish New Year though, as they are symbolic of the good deeds you hope to do in the coming year, so if you’re making it for Rosh Hashanah it’s best not to tamper with the carrots!)
Ingredients
- 2 kg 4lb 8oz chicken
- 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- salt and pepper
- 500 g 1lb 2oz carrots, long slim ones if possible
- 550 g 1lb 4oz sweet potatoes, peeled and sliced
- 3 tart apples halved, cored and cut into wedges
- 12 prunes
- finely grated zest and juice of 1 orange
- 250 ml 9fl oz chicken stock
- 250 ml 9fl oz red or white wine
- 2 cm ¾in root ginger, peeled and grated
- ½ tsp ground cinnamon
- 2 tbsp soft light brown sugar or to taste
- juice of ½ lemon
- ½ tbsp finely chopped flat-leaf parsley leaves optional
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/gas mark 4.
- Put the chicken into a roasting tin, big enough for the vegetables and fruit to fit around it.
- Rub with the olive oil and season with salt and pepper.
- Peel the carrots if they need it, or wash thoroughly.
- Leave whole if they are slim, cut in half lengthways if they aren’t.
- Put the carrots, sweet potatoes, apples and prunes round the chicken (tuck the prunes underneath as they will burn if exposed).
- Heat the orange zest and juice with the stock, wine, ginger and cinnamon.
- Pour over the vegetables.
- Sprinkle on the sugar and season.
- Put into the hot oven and cook for 1 hour 25 minutes, basting the chicken every so often with the juices.
- If, at the end of cooking time, you still have quite a lot of liquid, you can remove the chicken, veg and fruit to a heated platter and reduce the liquid by boiling.
- This is supposed to be a sweet dish, but make sure the juices don’t become off-puttingly sweet when you boil them.
- Squeeze the lemon juice over the vegetables and sprinkle with the parsley.
Notes / Tips / Wine Advice:
My friend Helen serves this for Rosh Hashanah with potatoes roasted in chicken fat.