Claypot Corn Chicken

This was the dinner that Andrew made last night! It's simple, uses one pot, no oily splitter splatter, we make full use of the whole chicken, AND importantly, it's yummy! When the chicken is cooked, the whiff of roasted chicken, garlic and herbs smell just floated in the air filling the house with a heavenly smell.
The chicken tasted like steam chicken and more, with a good "roasty" flavour. The claypot sealed all the flavours beautifully giving an intense and aromatic chicken with rich broth. We often add potatoes and last night we experimented with fresh sweet corn as well. The potatoes having absorbed all the rich broth while cooking was so flavourful. We used a few of the large potatoes we had in the pantry, but if buying them, we'd use several new (ie baby) potatoes instead as baby potatoes hold together better in the heat since the skin need not be peeled.

Cooked in a Rometoff clay pot.

1 Whole Chicken (corn fed if available).
2 large fresh cobs of corn (or a 4 pack of small ones), cut the sweet corn off the cob and put both aside.
2 large potatoes, quartered (or several new potatoes).
1/2 cup of white wine.

Marinade / rub
4 cloves of garlic, crushed.
1 or 2 teaspoons of salt.
1 tablespoon or so of olive oil.
2 teaspoons of chopped oregano (dry if no fresh available).

Mix marinade well and push under the chicken skin with a teaspoon, and spread around. Rub the remainder on the outside of the bird. Fill the cavity with the corn cobs. As an option you could also put a few lemon wedges into the chook as well, plus more garlic cloves and fresh oregano.

Put the chicken into a soaked claypot. Spread the potatoes around, then add the white wine. Put the lid of the claypot on and put into an unheated oven for 1 hour at 220. After 45mins, scatter the corn all over the chicken, then return to oven for another 15 mins. Remove and let rest with lid on for 10 - 15 mins.

To serve, cut the chicken as preferred and scoop corn and juices over the meat and potatoes. If you don't have potatoes, use white rice - this is especially delicious with the left over corn and juice!

This time we had the chicken thigh and wings and potatoes for dinner, with plain white rice. The remaining chicken breast we may save for making sandwiches or noodles the next day.

The carcass, we used to make stock, adding the bones, skin, corn cobs plus one onion and a couple of bay leaves to a stock pot, bring to boil then simmer for a few hours, cool & skim. It's placed in freezer in tubs, and to be used another day for making soupy noodle, or simply used as stock for cooking. Its good savings considering a carton of 500g Campbell chicken stock costs about AUD3.50. We ended up with over 2 ltrs of stock, plenty to use fresh and to freeze for later. We made a few ice cube trays of stock so I can just use as many or as little cubes as I like :-)

Bon Appetit