Italian roast chicken with peppers and olives

A roast chicken always is celebratory. The vibrantly coloured and intensely flavoured vegetables that are cooked alongside here seem only to underline this, offering their own brightness and brio, sunny in taste as well as mood.

Italian roast chicken with peppers and olives. © BBC

• serves

  4

• prep

  20 minutes

• cook

  1:15 hour

• difficulty

  Easy

Ingredients

• 1.5 kg (3 lb 5 oz) chicken (preferably organic)
• 1 unwaxed lemon, cut in half
• 4 rosemary sprigs
• 3 leeks, washed and trimmed
• 2 red capsicums (peppers)
• 1 orange capsicum (pepper)
• 1 yellow capsicum (pepper)
• 100 g (3½ oz) pitted dry-packed black olives
• 4 tbsp olive oil
• sea salt flakes and freshly ground black pepper

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 200°C (400°F/Gas 6). Untruss the chicken, sit it in a roasting tin and put the lemon halves and two of the rosemary sprigs into the chicken’s cavity.

Wash and trim the leeks, cut each into three logs, then slice lengthways and add to the tin. Now remove the core and seeds of the capsicums and slice them into strips, following their natural curves and ridges, and add these to the tin.

Tumble in the olives, and now pour the olive oil, mostly over the vegetables but a little over the chicken, too. Add the remaining rosemary sprigs to the vegetables, along with some sea salt flakes and freshly ground black pepper, to taste. Using a couple of spoons or spatulas, gently toss the vegetables about to help coat them with the oil and make sure everything’s well mixed up.

Sprinkle some sea salt flakes over the chicken and put it in the oven for about 1–1¼ hours, by which time the chicken should be cooked through, and its juices running clear when you cut into the flesh with a small sharp knife at the thickest part of the thigh joint. The vegetables should be tender by now, too, and some of the leeks will be a scorched light-brown in parts.

Remove the chicken to a carving board and, while it rests (for about 10 minutes) pop the pan of veg back in the oven, switching the oven off as you do so.

Cut the chicken up chunkily, transferring the pieces to a large warmed platter. Now take the pan back out of the oven and, with a slotted spoon or spatula, remove the vegetables to the large platter and when all is arranged to your aesthetic delight, pour over it all the bronze, highly flavoured juices that have collected in the pan.

See Nigella Lawson in Nigellissima. Find details and more recipes from the show here. 

Cook's Notes

Oven temperatures are for conventional; if using fan-forced (convection), reduce the temperature by 20˚C. | We use Australian tablespoons and cups: 1 teaspoon equals 5 ml; 1 tablespoon equals 20 ml; 1 cup equals 250 ml. | All herbs are fresh (unless specified) and cups are lightly packed. | All vegetables are medium size and peeled, unless specified. | All eggs are 55-60 g, unless specified.