Olive and Lemon Chicken

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roasted chicken and olives

Olive and Lemon Chicken

Course: Main Courses
Take a close look at this recipe and you’ll find the most important ingredient- the lovely little anchovy- missing from the title. We know some of you might be a little hesitant to peel back a can and handle the little cured fish, but anchovies are one of our favorite ingredients to play with. The flavor punch they pack is a perfect balance of briny, sour and meaty and we encourage you to keep a can or jar at close hand (we prefer the jars, since once you’ve opened up a can you’ve got to use its contents quickly or transfer the anchovies to another container).
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Ingredients

  • 1 3 lb chicken
  • 4 fillets Anchovy
  • 2 tsp Honey
  • 2 Tbsp Olive oil
  • 4 sprigs Thyme
  • 1 lemon
  • 4 cloves Garlic
  • 1 Tbsp butter
  • 1 bunch Parsley
  • 2 Tbsp Olive oil

Instructions

  • Preheat the oven to 400F.
  • Place the olives, anchovies, honey and olive oil in a food processor and pulse into a paste.
  • Cut the lemon in half and juice half of the lemon in the paste.
  • Remove your chicken from its packaging and check inside the bird to make sure no innards remainYou’ll want to rub the olive paste just under the skin- you may need to cut a few notches into the skin to get underneath it. Go ahead and rub ¾ of the mixture under the skin of the chicken, but only on the breast side of the bird, saving the remainder of the paste aside.
  • Cut the lemon in quarters and place it and the garlic inside the cavity of the chicken.
  • Place the chicken breast-side up in a Dutch oven and rub the butter over the skin. Bake for 40 minutes with a cover. Remove the cover and bake another 20-30 minutes, or until a temperature reading at the thigh reads 165F.
  • Finely chop the parsley leaves and mix it with olive oil and remaining paste. Brush this on the chicken while still warm.

Notes

The paste you’ll use to flavor this chicken will keep in your fridge for up to a week. You can thin it out with olive oil to toss with Romaine lettuce for a quick salad, use it as a marinade for chicken thighs or mix it with mayonnaise for a delicious grown-up sandwich spread.