Nigella's Buttermilk Roast Chicken

I plumped for making Nigella's Buttermilk Roast Chicken for dinner this evening as a way of joining in the fun of the n.com cookalong. It's a recipe that I found on the Recipes page of n.com and featured on an ITV Nigella show apparently but I'm not sure which one. The decision to make this was helped by the fact that I had a 500ml tub of buttermilk sitting in my fridge and my not having the least idea what I was going to do with it. In the culinary wasteland that is my adopted island in the sun, buttermilk is a bit of a novelty as it's only become available at our big hypermarket recently. So, of course, I had to slip it into my trolley and think about what I wanted to do with it afterwards.

The recipe calls for a whole chicken but for the two of us I decided to buy just two organic chicken legs. We have big chickens here, even after removing the backbone the two legs weighed about 1kg, so I halved the recipe which is for a 2kg chicken.

The meat was marinaded overnight in oil, buttermilk, garlic, crushed black peppercorns, Maldon salt, chopped fresh rosemary sprigs, and maple syrup. The chicken pieces were then laid on a rack to drain off the excess marinade before placing them in a roasting pan lined with aluminium paper. I roasted them for 45 minutes instead of the hour and a quarter suggested for a whole chicken and the meat was done to perfection.

The chicken was very moist and there was a flavoursome juice in the bottom of the roasting pan to pour over the smashed baby potatoes and french beans I served on the side. A very easy meal to prepare, although requiring some planning ahead because of the marinade, however we thought it a little bland. This is not to criticise the recipe, we have a very definite preference for spiced foods as future postings on this blog will surely demonstrate.