Chicken In Milk & Cinnamon & Garlic & Lemon

OK, so this is a weird recipe. It involves roasting a chicken in milk and some other stuff. The milk sort of curdles.

But y'know what? It also happens to be amazingly delicious. Tender, zingy, zesty, flavorful, moist... and you get some great broth out of it.

Here goes:

1 whole chicken
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
115g/4oz or ½ a pack of butter
Olive oil
1/2 cinnamon stick
1 good handful of fresh sage, leaves picked
Zest of 2 lemons
10 cloves of garlic, skin left on
565ml/1 pint milk

Preheat the oven to 375°, and find a snug-fitting pot for the chicken. Season it generously all over, and fry it in the butter and a little olive oil, turning the chicken to get an even colour all over, until golden. Remove from the heat, put the chicken on a plate, and reserve the oil and butter left in the pot. This will leave you with tasty sticky goodness at the bottom of the pan which will give you a lovely caramelly flavour later on.

Put your chicken back in the pot with the rest of the ingredients, and cook in the preheated oven for 1½ hours.* Baste with the cooking juice when you remember. The lemon zest will sort of split the milk, making a sauce which is absolutely fantastic.

To serve, pull the meat off the bones and divide it on to your plates. Spoon over plenty of juice and the little curds. Serve with wilted spinach or greens and some mashed potato.

*Note: the recipe doesn't mention whether or not to cover the chicken. We covered it for most of the baking time, to delicious effect.

---

[Source]