All the food cooked and ready to plate up

I get Olive magazine every month and every time it comes through my door I have a flick through for inspiration. On Wednesday I decided to cook roast lemon chicken with braised butter beans for Tom. Really because I had had two chicken legs sat in my freezer for a few months. Nice! I also decided to cook Patate e cipolle al forno! That’s a bit Come Dine With Me-esque really as people try to say it out loud! Really it is just oven-baked potatoes and red onions with pancetta, which is one of the things I learnt to cook on a cookery class at Caldesi in Campagna in Bray.

Both went together really well. The chicken dish is really simple and if you don’t mind meat on the bone I would recommend it. The ingredients are 2 whole cloves garlic, squashed, ½ lemon, cut into wedges, a glass of white wine, 4 chicken legs (I used two although kept the other measurements), 250g punnet of cherry tomatoes (which are really good at the mo), butter bins, 2x400g tin although I only used one, and ½ a large bunch of parsley chopped.

Heat the oven to 190c/fan 170c/ gas 5 and put the garlic and lemon into a baking dish and add the white wine. Put the chicken on top and season well then roast is it for 45mins. Add the tomatoes and cook for another 10 minutes until the chicken is cooked through and golden.

Take the chicken out and put under foil. It says to squish the garlic into the juice but I had already squashed it at the start. Remove the lemon wedges and add the butter beans. Cook for another 10 minutes and it is ready to serve with the chicken. Very tasty and quite healthy without the chicken skin!

Then for the potatoes. For two people I used two baking potatoes which I diced into 1cm cubes (skin left on). It says to preheat the oven to 180C but I cooked it on 170c. Add one red onion, peeled and chopped, to the potatoes and plenty of olive oil so the potatoes are completely covered. Then add seasoning and 100g pancetta, roughly chopped (mine was already chopped by the kind people of Tesco.) It says to use fresh thyme of rosemary but I just added a bit of dried thyme. Mix it all together with your hands and then cook for 25-35 mins. Shake and stir halfway through.

These potatoes are lovely! The onion is so sweet at the end and the potatoes the perfect texture. They would go with all meats and an alternative to the usual roast potatoes at a Sunday lunch. Cook them now! Good comfort food for this weather!