I suppose we all have our fave celeb chefs. If you have been a CW reader for any length of time you will know that we love the reliability of Mary Berry’s recipes and that I have a crush on Jamie Oliver. Another chef that I admire is Rachel Khoo. She is the one with the lovely demeanour that set up the smallest restaurant in Paris in her tiny flat. Anyhow, this is an adaptation of her Lavender and Honey Roast Chicken recipe which I tried last week and which, quite frankly, went down a storm. Don’t worry about using fresh lavender – it really is a very interesting and subtle way to add another flavour dimension to chicken, one of the world’s most popular foods. Talking chicken, whenever I see an offer on whole birds in the supermarket, I often buy one or two for the freezer. This recipe is a fabulous way of using one up (once defrosted of course).

Lavender and honey roast chicken

Ingredients serves 4 – 6
1 chicken, jointed into 8-10 pieces
A generous pinch of salt
For the marinade:
2 tbsp fresh lavender buds
4 tbsp olive oil
4 tbsp runny honey
Finely grated zest and juice of 1 unwaxed lemon

How to prepare
To make the marinade, crush the lavender using either a mortar and pestle or a rolling pin. Put the crushed lavender into a large bowl with the oil, honey, lemon zest and juice. Mix well.

Place the chicken pieces into the bowl and turn them until every piece is well coated with the marinade. Cover and leave to marinate for 30 minutes (or up to 4 hours if you have time).

Preheat the oven to 200°C. Put the chicken and marinade into a roasting tin and sprinkle with a generous pinch of salt. Roast the chicken for 15 minutes and turn the pieces over. Then cook for a further 15 – 30 minutes until the chicken is cooked through. Pierce the thickest part of the flesh with a skewer – the juices should run clear, not red or pink.

Serve the chicken with the cooking juices poured over and around. As you can see from the photo above, I steamed some broccoli and boiled some new potatoes to serve with it.