Herby chicken thighs and salad
This simple recipe for delicious herby chicken thighs and salad uses flavoursome garlic and refreshing lemon thyme, and is perfect for kids up to the age of eight to have a go at making (with adult supervision).
Want more inspiration to get your children cooking? Check out these recipes for Moroccan meatballs or coconut chicken and petit pois curry.
Taken from the Leon Cook 5 campaign
Serves: 4
Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 50 minutes
Price per portion: £2.19
Ingredients
- 8 chicken thighs
- 3–4 cloves of garlic
- 1–2 tbsp olive oil
- A small bunch of fresh lemon thyme
- 4 Little Gem lettuces or 4 large handfuls of baby leaves
- 100g watercress
- Chicken stock
- 20g butter
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Method
- Heat the oven to 200°C/400°F/gas mark 6.
- Carefully trim the excess fat off the chicken thighs and place them skin side up in a roasting tray. Throw in the garlic cloves, then drizzle everything with the olive oil – try to make sure everything's well covered.
- Now strip the leaves off the lemon thyme stalks, and scatter them into the tray. Season the chicken thighs with salt and pepper and pop them into the oven for 45 minutes, or until they're cooked through.
- While the chicken's in the oven, trim the lettuces and slice them into 1cm strips. Put them into a bowl and toss them with the watercress, then divide the salad equally between your plates.
- When the chicken's ready, remove it from the oven and place on top of the salad. Deglaze the roasting tray with the chicken stock, scraping up all the cooking residues from the bottom of the tray and squashing the roasted garlic into the sauce.
- Finally, whisk in the butter for a nice glossy finish. Pour the sauce over the chicken and salad, and serve.
Tip: If you fancy a change from chicken thighs, this will work perfectly well with drumsticks or with entire thigh/leg sections. We don't make it with chicken breast because it tends to dry out
The Leon Cook 5 campaign
Cook 5 is a national campaign launched by co-founders of Leon restaurants, John Vincent and Henry Dimbleby, aimed at getting the UK’s children to learn to Cook 5 things before the age of 16. Participation is simple: children are invited to register on the Cook 5 website, where 15 guideline recipes are provided. All entrants are encouraged to learn to Cook 5 of these savoury dishes and upload photos of their own culinary creations to the site as they go along – mistakes and all!
Cook 5 - Tasty Herby Chicken Thighs taken from Leon Family and Friends Book 4 by Kay Plunkett-Hogge & John Vincent, published by Conran Octopus (photgraphy by Georgia Glynn Smith)
