Yellow Chicken (gluten free whole curried roast chicken)

I kind of made this recipe up from lots of other recipes and bunged it in the oven, the results were yummy! It looks quite fancy, and involves skinning a whole chicken and then roasting it in a big pot of thick curry sauce which sticks to the whole chicken and bakes onto it, while also making some runny sauce at the bottom of the pot. I use a big iron casserole dish for this (my large le cruset). A large wide pot is good to enable the sauce to bake onto the chicken at the top, so the chicken isn't totally submerged in sauce, it needs a lid but you can use two layers of foil at a push. A little blender helps with this recipe too, or lots of chopping is needed! It's quite mild and will appeal to people that like korma, masala and butter chicken type curries. You can always bung in more chilli if you want things a bit hotter. I have a spice grinder, so use whole spices. If you don't have one of these then swap for ground spices and use a couple of teaspoons of garam masala instead of the cloves, cinnamon stick and cardamon pod seeds.

whole fresh free range chicken 1, skinned (this is possible!)

greek style yogurt 8 tbsp (a big pot!)

ground almonds 500gms

fresh ginger 5cm cube, skinned and roughly chopped
garlic 4 cloves, roughly chopped

red chilli 1, chopped

cumin seeds 3 tsp

corriander seeds 3 tsp

fennel seeds 1 tsp

cloves 2

whole black pepper 5 seeds
cardamon pods 4, black seeds removed from pods
cinnamon stick 1
ground tumeric 1 tsp
lime 1, juiced
salt

So, skinning this whole chicken isn't easy peasy, but is possible! Start with the breast skin, then work onto the thighs and legs. Don't bother trying to skin the wings. The skin really wont want to come off the ends of the drumsticks, so I just take some kitchen scissors and cut what I can off and then leave a bobble of skin on the end of the drumsticks. If you really yank it it will come off though. Also you wont get all the skin off the chickens back (the bit thats on the bottom when the breasts are facing upwards) so just cut off what you can with scissors and then leave the rest on. What with this skin left on the wings and the back the chicken will be left looking like its wearing a little chicken skin bollero jacket.

Make a few slashes in the breast, thighs and drumsticks and then rub the chicken allover with the lime juice and a teaspoon of salt, put to one side while you make the spice mix.

So, make up your spice mix, grind all your whole spices (except the cinnamon stick) and put these in a little blender, add the garlic, ginger, chilli, tumeric, a teaspoon of salt and a tablespoon of any oil. Blend this up into a paste. Give it a sniff and if you like bung in some garam masala if you feel it needs it, this will just add more aromatic spices.

Take half this mix and rub it all over the chicken, right into all the gaps and slashes in the meat. This does have blended chillies in it so use some little gloves or a spoon or something rather than marinating your hands in chilli.

Take the other half of the mix and add the yogurt and almonds, and a small cup of water to thin down, it will reduce in the oven anyway. This will make a yellow sauce.

Put the chicken in your big pot, and then gloop over the yogurt almond sauce. Some will stick to the chicken and some will pool at the bottom of the pot. Chuck in the cinnamon stick, bob the lid on and cook in the oven for 1.5 hours (at 180), take a peek every 30 mins. What will happen is first some juices will come out of the chicken and the sauce will go runny, then the sauce will thicken and stick to the sides of the pot and go a bit brown, when its thick you can spoon some over the top of the chicken so it has a nice coating of sauce, then the sauce will thicken more and stick to the chicken, have the lid off for the last 30 mins so it really bakes on and goes a bit brown. If it all starts to look too thick like you wont have any sauce, bung half a cup of water in the bottom and swish around. You are looking for the sauce to be baked onto the chicken breasts and drumsticks, but some thick sauce to still be swishing around the bottom of the pot. You can taste the sauce after an hour as the chicken will be cooked, check its salty enough.

To serve lift the whole chicken out of the sauce, it may fall apart, the thighs will drop off and all sorts, so lift carefully using two big spoons, and maybe some extra help is good. Pop the chicken on a board to rest for a mo covered in foil. Some bits of bones and stuff may be all in your sauce, so I sieve it and then put back in the pot with the lid on and bob back in the oven to stay warm. Oh, don't forget to fish out the cinnamon stick!

To deal with the chicken I just take the breasts off the bone whole and chop in half, then take off the drumsticks and thighs on the bone, I bung this all on a big plate and stick all the sauce all around it, or just stick the portions straight onto serving plates with a big blob of sauce.

Serve with rice, raita, mango chutney, popadoms, and while your oven is on you can make some spicy roast parsnips or something if you like, just cut up and cover with some oil and spices and roast for 30-40 mins.

Raita is easy, mix yogurt with salt, pepper and chopped mint (or cheat with a bit of mint sauce). You can put grated/chopped cucumber in too if you like.