All my favourites in one dish: Diana Henry; a new one tin recipe; chicken thighs; sourdough. This is one of those perfect for the Aga one tin dishes which has the added bonus of using up some of the sourdough I have been making. My sourdough is improving and everyone seems to enjoy eating it but this new pastime has brought out the perfectionist in me and I haven’t yet achieved my ideal loaf. I am beginning to understand what drives people to keep baking sourdough. Part of the enjoyment is reading books about it and watching video demonstrations. I am aspiring to make Chad Robertson’s “basic country bread” as described in his wonderful book “Tartine“. I am reading it avidly and am grateful to my youngest son for leaving it at home when he returned to university this week. The other sourdough book I’m finding invaluable is James Morton’s “Super Sourdough” which my sons gave me for Christmas.

Anyway, back to the chicken recipe. It’s from Diana Henry’s latest wonderful book “From the Oven to the Table” and I hope you find it as delicious, interesting and distinctive as we did. The great thing is it’s very easy to up the quantities, using an additional roasting tin, without much extra work. You would need to allow some extra time in the oven and swap the tins round halfway through to make sure all the chicken pieces achieved that golden brown crispiness.

Ingredients

(Serves 4)

• 175g sourdough bread, torn into pieces roughly 5cm square
• 450g small waxy potatoes, cut into chunks
• 1 large onion, peeled and cut into wedges
• 6 thyme sprigs
• 1-2 tsps (according to preference) chilli flakes
• 1 head of garlic, cloves separated but not peeled
• 150g pancetta or bacon, ideally in one piece cut into chunks, but I used rashers which I chopped up
• 8 skin-on bone-in chicken thighs
• 2 tbsps sherry vinegar
• 220ml amontillado sherry
• 5 tbsps extra virgin olive oil
• sea salt flakes and freshly ground black pepper
• 150g spring onions, trimmed
• 50g raisins
• 100g bitter salad leaves such as radicchio or chicory
• 25g toasted pine nuts

Method

• Put the bread, onion, potatoes, thyme, chilli and garlic cloves in the large Aga roasting tin
• Add the pancetta or bacon and the chicken thighs
• Pour on the sherry vinegar, 70ml of the sherry and 4 tablespoons of the olive oil
• Season and toss everything round with your hands, finishing with the chicken thighs skin side up. Make sure the bread isn’t too exposed, or lying at the edges, or it will become too dark
• Slide onto the second set of runners in the roasting oven and roast for 25 minutes, tossing the ingredients round and turning the tin round once. Keep the chicken skin side up
• Mix the spring onions with the last tablespoon of olive oil in a bowl and lay them on top of the tin, adding another 50ml sherry
• Return to the oven for a further 15 minutes
• Pour the remaining sherry into a small pan with the raisins and bring to just under the boil on the boiling plate. Leave these to sit, then add them to the roasting tin for the last 5 minutes of the cooking time
• For us this was a kitchen supper so I served it from the tin and placed a salad bowl of red chicory dressed with balsamic and olive oil on the table. Alternatively, you could transfer everything to a large serving dish and mix in the leaves
• Throw on the pine nuts and serve