Sponsored: Herby roast chicken with crispy serrano ham
Serves: 4
Prep time: 20 minsTotal time: 
Sponsored
Recipe photograph by Stuart West
Sponsored: Herby roast chicken with crispy serrano ham
A one-tin Spanish-style roast chicken supper that’s ideal when you have guests around
Serves: 4
Prep time: 20 minsTotal time: 
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Tamsin Burnett-Hall
Tamsin learned the tricks of the trade from cookery legend Delia Smith. A trusted recipe writer for the magazine for over 25 years, she is now our Senior Food Producer, overseeing testing and editing to ensure that every recipe tastes great, is straightforward to follow and works without fail. In her home kitchen, Tamsin creates fuss-free flavour-packed food for friends and family, with baking being her ultimate form of comfort cooking
See more of Tamsin Burnett-Hall’s recipes
Ingredients
- 1 whole garlic bulb
- 100g soft goat’s cheese or cream cheese
- 25g soft butter
- ½ x 20g pack fresh thyme
- ½ x 30g pack fresh parsley
- a medium whole chicken, about 1.6kg
- 1 onion, thickly sliced
- 5 slices Serrano ham
- a drizzle of olive oil
- 750g baby potatoes, larger ones halved
- 125ml Campo Viejo Blanco wine
- 2 red peppers, deseeded and roughly chopped
- 100g pitted Spanish olives
Step by step
- Preheat the oven to 190°C, fan 170°C, gas 5. Slice the garlic bulb in half horizontally, setting the lower half aside. Crush about 4 of the half garlic cloves into a bowl and mash with the goat’s cheese, butter and seasoning. Strip leaves from the thyme and the parsley sprigs and chop, separately. Stir half the chopped herbs into the goat’s cheese.
- Use your hand to lift the chicken skin away from the breast, then spoon the herby goat’s cheese under the skin; smooth it out evenly over the chicken. Tuck the herb stalks and the rest of the loose garlic cloves inside the chicken cavity and place in a roasting tin, sitting it on top of the sliced onion. Lay the Serrano ham slices over the chicken and drizzle with olive oil.
- Roast for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, put the potatoes in a bowl with the rest of the thyme and the reserved garlic. Remove the chicken from the oven; set the crispy ham aside on a plate and drain the roasting juices into the potato bowl. Toss to coat and tip into the tin around the chicken. Pour in the Campo Viejo Blanco and return to the oven for 30 minutes.
- Stir the peppers and olives in with the potatoes and roast for a further 30 minutes or until the chicken is cooked and the veg golden. Scatter with the rest of the parsley. Serve the chicken, veg and crispy ham with a glass of Campo Viejo Blanco.
