Spring one-pot roast chicken

Add a springtime twist to this Sunday roast with radishes and whole spring onions, and a creamy sauce made using mascarpone, tarragon and lemon

Prep:20 mins
Cook:1 hrs 20 mins

Serves 4
Easy

Nutrition per serving

kcal 950
fat 59g
saturates 26g
carbs 40g
sugars 10g
fibre 10g
protein 59g
salt 0.7g

Ingredients

1½ kg whole chicken
250g mascarpone
½ small lemon, zested and juiced
small bunch of tarragon, finely chopped
3 tbsp olive oil
800g new potatoes, halved if large
1 garlic bulb, halved
200g radishes, halved if large
½ bunch of spring onions, trimmed
150ml chicken stock
200g frozen peas, defrosted
100g spring greens, shredded

Tip

Go green

Swap radishes for chopped leeks, long-stem broccoli, sugar snaps or mangetout.

Know your herbs

Tarragon, with its sweet aniseed flavour, complements the flavour of chicken and cuts through the creaminess of the sauce. If you’re not a fan of aniseed (it tastes more like fennel than liquorice), basil, chives or even wild garlic would work equally well.

Chicken & roast garlic aïoli dressing

Squeeze the garlic from its skin and mash to a paste. Mix with mayonnaise and some lemon juice. Use for drizzling over any leftover roast chicken.

Spring vegetable frittata

Tip any leftover vegetables and pan juices into a bowl and mix with beaten eggs. Heat some olive oil in an ovenproof frying pan and cook the mixture until the sides have set. Grill until cooked through, then turn out onto a board and cut into wedges.

Method

Heat the oven to 200C/180C fan/gas 6. Remove any string from the chicken and sit in a large roasting tin or a baking dish, with plenty of space around it.
Mash 2 tbsp of the mascarpone with the lemon zest, 1 tbsp of the tarragon and some seasoning. Slip your hand beneath the chicken skin to pull it away from the meat, then spread the mixture beneath the skin in a thin layer. Spoon another 3 tbsp mascarpone into the cavity of the chicken, to melt in with the roasting juices and enrich the sauce later on. Rub 2 tbsp olive oil into the skin, season well with sea salt, then loosely tie the legs together with butcher’s string. Roast for 20 mins.
Aarrange the potatoes and the garlic around the chicken, drizzle over another 1 tbsp oil and cook for another 30 mins.
Toss the radishes and whole spring onions into the dish, in and around the potatoes, coating everything in the fat, then roast for another 25 mins. The potatoes and radishes will be golden and tender, and the chicken should be cooked through. Remove the chicken from the tin, cover loosely with foil and leave to rest.
Pour off or spoon away the excess oil from the tin. Stir the remaining mascarpone (about 150g) with the stock in a jug until lump-free, then pour into the tin and bubble on the hob for few minutes, stirring to coat the potatoes and veg. Squeeze over some lemon juice and season.
Stir in the peas, spring greens and most of the remaining tarragon, and bubble for a few more minutes until bright green. Sit the chicken back in the middle of the tin to serve and scatter over the reserved tarragon.