What is a Dog?

On the 8th and 10th of January this year I posted images of my friends little West Highland Terriers, Josie and Pippa.  They used to both live next door to me at Wombat Hollow but a couple of years ago they moved to Jindabyne in the Snowy Mountains region.  Just before we had to leave our friends to head home after a wonderful couple of days they gifted us these dear little Book Ends which as you can see just happen to be a pair of “Westies”.  They now have pride of place keeping an eye on some precious books of mine.  The one on top is the beautiful creation of my Blipper friend Paula Banks.

We would both dearly love to have a dog or two but with our intention to travel once the borders are open once again it just isn’t practical at the moment.  I think it’s going to be a toss up between a Labrador and a “Westie” when the time comes and if we can’t decide which one well we’ll just have to adopt one of each.  Problem solved :)

And now as promised, here is the Yotam Ottolenghi recipe that I cooked a few days ago and honestly, it was delicious.  Happy to say it was pretty straight forward and a great one to be able to marinade overnight and cook in one hit when required.  I’ve had this dish twice now and I found it was good to segment the chicken into fewer pieces, it was a lot moister this way.

Lemon Chicken with Za’atar

Ingredients
3 Lemons
1 whole chicken (1.3kg) segmented into legs, thighs and breasts (or about 1kg of chicken legs or supremes, skin on, if you prefer)
2 onions, peeled, sliced in half, then each half cut into 3 wedges (260g)
2 heads of garlic, skin on sliced in half, widthways
2 tsp sumac
3/4tsp ground allspice
4 tbsp za’atar
90 ml olive oil
200 ml chicken stock (or water)
5g parsley, finely chopped
30g flaked almonds, toasted
Salt and black pepper

Method
Slice 2 of the lemons into 1/2 cm thick slices and place in a large mixing bowl.  Finely grate the zest of the remaining lemon to get 1 and a half teaspoons of zest). and set this aside for later.  Squeeze the same lemon to get about 1 and a half tablespoons of jice and add this to the mixing bowl along with the chicken, onions, garlic, sumac, allspice, 2 tablespoons of za’atar, 2 tablelspoons of oil, the stock or water, 1 and 1/2 teaspoons of salt and a good grind of black pepper.  Mix well to combine, then cover with a large plate and leave to marinate in the fridge for a least 2 hours (or overnight, if you have time).

Half an hour or an hour before baking, take the chicken out of the fridge: it should be at room temperature before going into the overnight.

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C fan

Transfer the chicken to a large baking tray, dkin side up, and pour over all the marinade and lemon slices.  Drizzle the chicken with a tablespoon of oil and bake for about 45 minutes, giving everything a bit of a stir halfway through, until the chicken is golden and cooked through and the onions have taken on some colour.  Transfer to a serving platter along with the lemon slices and any juices that have collected at the bottom of the tray.  Some people will love to eat the lemon slices and others won’t.  Either way, serve them up with the chicken: they look great.

Towards the end of the cooking time for the chicken, combine the parsley, lemon zest, the remaining 2 tablespoons of Za’atar and the remaining 3 tablespoons of olive oil in a bowl.  Spoon this over the chicken, finish with the almonds and serve.

I think you’re going to love this one and I’m just wrapped in Yotam Ottolenghi recipe books :). One of my favourite chefs.