Chicken in Salt with Fennel, Thyme & Lemon

This is a favorite recipe that I use of Jamie Oliver.  It is really unusual and can be used to impress.  It is surprisingly not salty. Try it I'm sure you love it!!  You'll also need a pestle and mortar for this.

Ingredients:

3kg/7lb rock salt (course salt)
8 heaped tablespoons of whole fennel seeds cracked.
2 Eggs, beaten
2 lemons, halved
1 tablespoon peppercorns
1 bunch fresh thyme
   olive oil
1 x 2kg/4,5lb organic chicken
1 bunch of parsley, ripped
8 Cloves of garlic, skins left on, squashed

1. Preheat oven to 200 C / 400 F/ gas 6.

2. Put all the salt into a deep bowl with the fennel seeds, eggs, lemon juice (keep skins, peppercorns, and a wineglass of water and mix together.

3. Bash up the thyme in a pestle and mortar and add a good couple of glugs of olive oil.

4. Scrunch it up and rub this flavoured oils all over your chicken, finally pushing the excess inside the cavity along with your parsley, garlic and squeezed lemon halves.  The idea here is to tightly pack the cavity so that it bulges and no salt can get in!!

5. Get 4 long pieces of tin foil and put them on top of each other to  make a sheet around a metre / 39 inches square.

6. lay a third of the salt, making it about 2cm/  3/4inch square.

7. Put the chicken on top, then pack the rest of the salt around.  Because the salt is slightly wet it should stick top the chicken - make sure that the chicken's skin hasn't been pierced.

8. Carefully fold up the sides of the tin foil and scrunch it at the top.  You can rip off any excess tinfoil. - basically the foil is that to hold the salt together until it hardens.

9. Place the chicken in the preheated oven and cook for 2 hours, then remove from the oven and allow to rest for 15 minutes.

10. Open the tinfoil and crack open the salt casing with the back of a spoon.









Serving suggestion

Have 2 nice salads and some interesting fresh bread.

P.S. Post a comment if you try this to let us know how it went!!