I love roast chicken and really enjoy the aftermath, by which I mean the leftovers. I usually turn them into a gratin, salad or stewy dish like this. Here choice pieces are stirred into a quickly made fresh tomato sauce seasoned with orange zest. The zest has an extraordinarily pronounced affect on the sauce and I can’t recommend it enough. Serve it stirred into buttery, herby pasta or pile over jacket potatoes; you’ll find my preferred way of making them here: Lamb Chops, Diamond Jacket Potatoes and Minted Pea Puree. Apart from leftover meat, the other bonus of roast chicken is the carcass for stock.
Serves 2
Prep: 20 min
Cook: 30 min
1 onion
1 tbsp olive oil
6 tomatoes
1 juicing orange
scant glass white wine
½ tsp sugar or honey
knob of butter, optional
300g approx leftover roast chicken
Halve, peel and finely chop the onion. Soften in a spacious, wide-based pan over a medium-low heat while you boil a full kettle and place the tomatoes in a suitable bowl that allows you to immerse them in boiling water from the kettle. Count to 40. Drain, cut out the cores in a pointed plug shape as you swipe away the tomato skin. Coarsely chop. Tip the tomatoes into the softened onion. Season with salt and pepper, add the wine and sugar or honey and simmer briskly as you microplane zest the orange over the top. Stir then reduce the heat and simmer gently, stirring occasionally, until thick and sauce like. Stir in the butter. Meanwhile, pick over the chicken and tear into bite-size pieces discarding skin, sinew etc. Stir the chicken into the sauce, warm through and serve.