Main ingredients:- 1.2kg Chicken legs
- Tarragon, thyme and parsley
- Oil, lemon juice and black pepper
- Garlic and English mustard
With barbecue season in full swing at last, I turned back to Hugh for inspiration and once again he did not disappoint. Having had great success with his lamb and beef burgers, the chicken was a bit more of a gamble, given the likelihood of it ending up worryingly undercooked on the inside and carbonised on the outside.
My brave adventure of salmonella avoidance began with a mound of fresh herbs. Hugh called for four herbs - tarragon, thyme, parsley and chive, but my local Tesco was out of chives and it was three for two on herbs, so it fell by the wayside. Three tablespoons of the herby pile was added to a large bowl and mixed with four tablespoons of oil, lemon zest, lemon juice, black pepper, garlic and half a teaspoon of Coleman's mustard. The whole she-bang made a nice zingy marinade for the chicken.
After two or three hours letting the chicken drink up the juices, we sparked up the barbie and whacked on the meat. The problem with cooking chicken, or indeed any sizeable chunk of meat on the BBQ, is balancing inner cooked-ness with outer blackness, and this wasn't helped by the amount of oil used and the woody thyme sprigs, which resulted in a flamy start. After the flames died down, we moved the now slightly crispy chicken to the side of the barbie and let them sizzle for 25 minutes.
Served with a mustard, egg and caper potato salad, these went down a treat, with the skin blackened in places, but not burnt so much that the flavour didn't survive. If I were to do this again, I'd give it more time to marinate (possibly overnight), but it was well worth the risk: so far no-one has died and this would have happily made dinner for four people for just £1.95 a head.
Best for... Something a little adventurous for the barbecue if you're bored of burgers and sausages and aren't in too much of a hurry.
Taken from... Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall - River Cottage Every Day (full recipe)
Helen says... Our guests approached the chicken cautiously at first but were all pretty pleased with the result!
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