Ahead of the Coronation weekend, chef Jamie Oliver has shared his revamped recipe for Coronation Chicken, and it could be the perfect dish for your at-home celebration.
The recipe in question, which is pretty easy to follow, takes two hours and 30 minutes in total to cook, and serves six people, making it ideal if you've got a couple of guests coming over this weekend.
Jamie serves up the classic dish with spiced dressing, pickled cucumber, and crushed poppadoms, turning the retro recipe into a "beautiful salad" he declares would be "perfect for a street party, buffet, or picnic".
Revealing the step-by-step recipe on his website, Jamie wrote: "What better way to mark the coronation celebrations than with my take on this retro beauty?
"I like to turn this into a delicious salad, but you could absolutely serve everything together as an epic spread, or use the individual components to fill sandwiches – perfect for a street party, buffet, or picnic."
As per Jamie's website, the meal should cost approximately £3.75 per serving.
You'll need the following ingredients before getting started:
- 5cm piece of ginger
- 2 garlic cloves
- 1-2 fresh red chillies
- 1 bunch of fresh coriander (30g)
- 2 lemons
- 2 tablespoons of curry paste
- Olive oil
- 1 x 1.8kg free-range whole chicken
- 4 red onions
- 1 x 435g tin of pineapple slices in juice
- 4 heaped tablespoons Greek yoghurt
- 2 tablespoons flaked almonds
- 1 pomegranate
- 4 little gem lettuce
- 1 cucumber
- 2 poppadom
Jamie kicks things off by peeling and finely grating the ginger and garlic, before trimming and finely slicing the chillies and coriander stalks, popping the leaves to one side for later.
He then chucks these into a decent-sized roasting tray, seasoning everything with a pinch of sea salt and black pepper, before squeezing in the juice of half a lemon.
After mixing in 1 tablespoon of curry paste and olive oil, Jamie then sits the whole chicken in the tray, rubbing it all over with the marinade, including the inside of the cavity.
After piercing one of the lemons all over, Jamie microwaves the zesty fruit on high (800W) for 45 seconds, before placing it inside the cavity of the chicken.
He then peels the onions, slicing them into wedges before separating them into petals, and adding to the roasting tray, where he now sits the chicken breast-side down.
All this should be covered and left to marinate in the fridge for up to 12 hours, before heading onto the next steps.
When ready to cook, Jamie preheats the oven to 180°C/350°F/gas 4, before draining the tinned pineapple and keeping the sweet juice to one side.
He then leaves the chicken to roast for one hour 30 minutes, turning it over with tongs and adding pineapple to the tray of ingredients halfway through. The meat then rests for 30 minutes on a board.
Jamie then takes the lemon out of the cavity, squeezing half the juice into the tray, before stirring in yoghurt plus a splash of pineapple juice.
He then shreds and adds the chicken, putting any skin aside for later and getting rid of any bones, tossing everything before cooking the chicken skin in a non-stick frying pan on medium heat for minutes and roughing chopping. The toasted almonds are then toasted in the hot pan.
After halving the pomegranate, Jamie bashes the back of one-half cut-side using a spoon, causing all the seeds to fall into the bowl.
He then clicks apart the lettuce leaves into cups and uses a fork to create grooves on the outside of the cucumber, finely slicing this into rounds before tossing these with a pinch of salt and juice from half a lemon.
When it comes to serving the meal, Jamie arranges the coronation chicken on a big platter. He crushes the poppadoms and sprinkles them all over, scattering both the pomegranate seeds and the coriander leaves, chicken skin and almonds, before arranging the pickled cucumber on top and serving with the lettuce cups.
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