Spiced Roast Chicken & Bread Salad

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This recipe pre-dates my 5 Ingredients philosophy.

Spiced Roast Chicken & Bread Salad

From Stonesoup

My first foray into bread salad with chicken was based on Skye Gyngell’s delicious little number that Maggie Beer was so fond of she included it in her latest book. It was a cracker: Summery and Christmassy all in one bowl. Since then I’ve played around with spicing up the chicken to give it more of a North African vibe.

The great thing about this salad is how the bread sucks up all the roasting juices. If you don’t have time to roast a chook, you could buy a pre cooked BBQ chicken and use that but you may need to increase the oil and vinegar to make sure there is enough dressing.

Serves 4
1.6kg free range organic chook
5 cardamom pods
1t each coriander, cumin & fenugreek seeds
1/2t freshly grated nutmeg
1t chilli powder
2T black peppercorns
8 cloves
1T sea salt
4T extra virgin olive oil
1 lemon, halved
5 red onions, peeled and sliced into 5mm wide rounds
450g loaf sourdough or other rustic bread
100g dried black cranberries
1 bunch mint, leaves picked
2T balsamic vinegar
4T extra virgin olive oil, optional
small handful toasted sliced almonds to serve

1. Preheat oven to 200C. Combine spices in a spice grinder or motar & pestle and grind until you have a chunky powder. Combine ground spices with oil to make a paste. Wash & dry chook, removing any excess fat from inside the cavity. Rub spice paste all over chook and stuff lemon halves into the cavity.

2. Place onion rings in the base of a baking tray and top with chicken breast side down. Bake for 20 mins then give the onions a stir and turn the bird so chicken is breast side up and continue to cook for another 55 mins or until chicken is golden and well cooked. If you’re not sure that it’s cooked cut down the inside of one of the thighs and check that the meat at the bone isn’t bright pink.

3. Cover chook and allow to cool. Tear bread into bight sized chunks and place in a large salad bowl with mint and cranberries. When chicken is cool enough to handle, remove meat from the bone and shred into smallish pieces and add to the bread. Feel free to discard the skin if you’re worried about the fat but it has all the delicious spices, so you’ll be missing out.

4. Add roast onions and all the pan juices and balsamic vinegar. Squeeze over juice from the lemons in the cavity and toss. Season and add additional olive oil if it seems a bit dry. Sprinkle with almonds and serve while the chicken is still slightly warm.