First off, I just want to let you know that I finally spent a few bucks, and you can now get to this blog by going to sparecake.com. You no longer have to type in the wordpress bit, although it’s not going to break anything if you do. So now it’ll be that much easier to tell your friends, right? Right?

And on to the recipe, which continues the occasional ‘Jamie Oliver bird recipes that are amazing’ theme I’ve got going. This chicken recipe made the most moist, flavorful chicken I’ve ever had. I ate the leftovers for two days cut up on salad, and didn’t even bother with dressing because the chicken has such a good flavor. The combo of milk and lemon zest may seem questionable, but it works perfectly!

Ingredients

• a 4 lb chicken (ok, I didn’t even look at the weight of the one we bought. oops!)
• salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 stick of butter
• olive oil
• 1/2 a cinnamon stick
• 1 good handful of fresh sage, leaves picked
• zest of 2 lemons
• 10 cloves of garlic, papery-stuff removed but skin left on
• 2 cups milk

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Melt the butter and a few tablespoons of oil in a cast iron (or other oven safe) pot on the stove. Brown the chicken, rotating so it cooks on all sides.

While it browns, prepare the zest, sage, and garlic.

When the chicken is browned all over, remove it from the pot for long enough to pour out the excess oil and butter, then put the chicken back. Sprinkle the zest, sage, and garlic over the chicken, then pour in the milk.

At this point, I followed a tip from The Kitchn, and put the lid on for the first hour of cooking. Put in the oven and cook for one hour, then remove the lid and cook a further half hour. If you can, feel free to baste when you’re removing the lid, but if it’s too much of a pain, don’t worry about it – I didn’t, but the chicken was still tremendously moist and flavored all over.

Take out the chicken and carve.

The lemon zest will have separated the milk in the pot. Spoon the resulting liquid over the chicken when you serve.

If it wasn’t so annoying to bike back from the store with a chicken on your back, I’d make this for dinner every week!

Chicken in Milk

From Jamie Oliver, with tips from The Kitchn.

• one 4 lb chicken
• salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 stick of butter
• olive oil
• 1/2 a cinnamon stick
• 1 good handful of fresh sage, leaves picked
• zest of 2 lemons
• 10 cloves of garlic, skin left on
• 2 cups milk

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Melt the butter and a few tablespoons of oil in a cast iron pot on the stove. Brown the chicken, rotating so it cooks on all sides.

Remove the chicken from the pot and pour out the excess oil and butter, then put the chicken back in. Sprinkle the zest, sage, and garlic over the chicken, then pour in the milk.

Cover, then put in the oven and cook for one hour. Remove the lid and cook a further half hour.

Take out the chicken and carve. Spoon the liquid from the pot over the chicken when serving.

Oh, PS, happy MLK Day! I got to work before 8 as usual, so, not much of a holiday!