Ras al Hanut Chicken

[Simon Wistow]

I found myself cooking in an unfamiliar kitchen last night with a store 
cupboard not as well stocked as I'm used to. A quick run to WholeFoods 
(a strictly organic supermarket run, I believe, by the same people who 
do Fresh and Wild in the UK) and I managed to cobble together something.

I got some very large skin-on, bone in chicken breasts and scored them 
fairly deeply a few times. Then I chucked them in a large bowl with 2 
generous table spoons of Ras al Hanut, some olive oil and 2 or 3 tsp of 
sour cream along with some pepper, garlic flakes and grated fresh 
ginger and mixed thoroughly before putting them aside for an hour or so.

Later, I preheated them oven and then placed them, skin side up in a 
cast iron pan type affair on the top shelf of a (approx) degree oven. 
The marinade was very thick and the appearance of the chicken was almost 
more like a dry rub than a wet marinade. 

I cooked them for (I'd guess) about 45-60 minutes (like I said, they 
were very big). They came out incredibly tasty and moist and the 
marinade had seeped down about a centimeter under the skin thanks to the 
slashes.

I served them on some Porcini Risotto (from a packet, the shame) whihc I 
livened up with some pan fried Chesnut mushrooms and made creamier with 
the addition of some sour cream. 

I also fried some sliced red and yellow peppers in olive oil until a few 
had started to blacken slightly.

It was, all in all, a huge success and I was, as the kids probably don't 
say, well chuffed.