Comfort Food: Portuguese Spit-Roasted Chicken and Potatoes

Welcome to Comfort Food. Each week during winter, we’re bringing you a delicious, soul-soothing recipe designed to deliver the sunshine you’re missing in the cooler months—in food form. From the brilliant mind of accomplished recipe developer, food stylist and author Kirsten Jenkins comes everything from an Italian breakfast pizza worth getting out of bed for (yep, even when it’s 4°C) to a banana cake with moreish coconut caramel and black sesame praline. In this instalment, we're serving up a Portuguese spit-roasted chicken cooked in the oven. (That's right, you can better your favourite charcoal chicken shop's fare in a few simple steps at home—no complicated and expensive roasting equipment required.) Served with burnished potatoes and a moreish kick of heat courtesy of sliced jalapenos, you might never order in from Uber Eats, again. Buon appetito.

Ingredients

6 long red chillies

2 bay leaves

3 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1 teaspoon sea salt flakes

½ teaspoon dried oregano

2 teaspoons smoked paprika

½ cup (125ml) olive oil

¼ cup (60ml) red wine vinegar

8 chicken thighs, skin on

500g kipfler potatoes, scrubbed and halved

500g small Dutch crème potatoes, scrubbed and halved

sea salt flakes and cracked black pepper

sliced jalapenos and coriander leaves, to serve

Method

Preheat the oven to 180°C fan-forced. Place the chillies and bay leaves on a roasting tray and roast for 5 minutes or until bay leaves are dried. Cool slightly and roughly chop. Place the chillies, bay leaves, garlic, salt, oregano, paprika, olive oil and vinegar in a saucepan over medium-low heat and simmer for 3 minutes. Set aside to cool completely. Place mixture in the bowl of a food processor and process until smooth. Place half the mixture in a large snap-lock bag with the chicken thighs, seal and refrigerate for 2 hours to marinate.

Meanwhile, place the potatoes in a saucepan of cold water over medium heat and slowly bring to the boil. Remove from the heat and drain well. Set aside.

Thread the marinated chicken thighs onto two 46cm metal skewers. In a standard oven that measures 43cm wide, lean the skewers between the two sides of the metal racks in the oven, so the chicken sits in the middle of the oven like a spit. Place the potatoes in a large baking tray and season. Place the tray on the bottom shelf of the oven, and roast both the chicken and potatoes for 40 minutes or until the chicken juices run into the potatoes and both the chicken and potatoes are cooked through. Slice the chicken from the skewers and serve with the potatoes, jalapenos and coriander leaves.

Serves 4.

Liked this? Try this Slow-Cooked Coconut Beef Rib Curry.