Main Lunch

Ben Tish’s Roasted Chicken with Grapes, Wine and Rosemary Recipe

There’s something so wonderfully comforting and therapeutic about the whole process of roasting a chicken. This exquisite Provençal version sets sweet roasted grapes and fragrantly aromatic rosemary as a backdrop to the salty chicken.

10 minutes prep, 1 hour 30 minutes plus resting time cook

Serves 6

Ingredients

1 red onion, unpeeled and cut into quarters

1 garlic bulb, cut in half widthways

1 oven-ready, free-range chicken, about 1.8kg

Olive oil

4 fresh rosemary sprigs

½ unwaxed lemon

700g seedless red or black grapes, ideally on their stalks

200ml dry red wine

300ml chicken stock (fresh or homemade is best)

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method

1 Preheat the oven to 220°C/Fan 200°C/Gas Mark 7.

2 Put the onion and one half of the garlic bulb in a deep roasting tin. Rub the chicken with olive oil, then season all over and inside the cavity with salt and pepper. Place one rosemary sprig, the lemon half and the remaining garlic bulb half in the cavity. Place the chicken on the onion and garlic and transfer the tin to the oven. Roast the chicken for 30 minutes, or until the skin has started to brown nicely and caramelise.

3 Reduce the temperature to 180°C/Fan 160°C/Gas Mark 4. Scatter around the grapes and remaining rosemary sprigs, and pour around the wine and half the stock. Continue roasting for a further 45 minutes, or until the chicken is cooked through – it should be crisp and golden on the outside and the juices should run clear when the thigh is pierced.

4 Transfer the chicken to a rimmed plate, cover with kitchen foil and leave to rest for 15 minutes. Do not turn off the oven.

5 Meanwhile, strain all the juices from the roasting tin into a saucepan and put the grapes back in the tin and return to the oven. Roast for a further 5 minutes, or until they are sticky and begin to caramelise.

6 Add the remaining stock to the saucepan and boil for 10 minutes, or until the juices have reduced and thickened. Serve the chicken with the sticky, sweet grapes and the sauce for pouring over at the table.

Recipes extracted from Mediterra by Ben Tish, published by Bloomsbury. Photography by Kris Kirkham.