Comforting Casual Roast Chicken & Olives Meets Movie Night

Easy chicken, olive and lemon dish to make for a casual movie night dinner.

What makes chicken casual?? When you can cook and serve in
the same dish and even the salad tastes good right along side the chicken on
the same plate.  Sometimes I just
want to curl up with a comfort food dinner and watch an old movie (OK, so the
other night, it wasn’t an old movie, we watched Deadline which I believe won
the Most Predictable Suspense-Horror Flick Award, but it was still fun to mouth
the dialogue before the actors said it and may Brittany Murphy RIP).

Roast Chicken with Olives & Lemon

3-4 boneless, skinless chicken thighs cut up into large bite
size pieces (you can use breast, but thighs taste better)

1 medium size Idaho potato, washed, unpeeled, cut up into
bite size chunks

2-3 T Veal Demi-Glace (Now, should you not have this
valuable staple in your fridge, use a glug or two of red wine, won’t be the
same, but it will still be good taste good.)

¼ cup chopped green olives

1 Meyer Lemon (Meyers are in season, but if you have a
regular lemon you can use that but cut back on the amount of lemon you use)

Olive Oil, Rosemary, Oregano, Flour for dredging.

There is some prep work to be done.

      1)  
Boil a small pot of salted water and par boil
your cut potatoes, about 4-5 minutes.

        2)  Dredge the chicken bits in flour and lightly
sauté them in a pan.

I know. I know. I just gave you 2
pots to clean. Get over it; it’s worth it.

In an ovenproof dish, like a clay pot, combine the drained
potatoes and chicken. Add the veal stock or red wine, a sprinkle of salt and
some rosemary and oregano. I think people have forgotten the value of oregano, but
that’s another post for another day.

Prepare a green salad with a mustardy vinaigrette dressing
and leave it in the fridge until dinner is ready.

Place the dish in a warm oven (325F/165C) and roast until
the chicken is almost done, say about 30 minutes. I don’t know how big you cut
your chunks of chicken or if you used breast or thigh meat so 30 minutes is
just a guideline, ok?  Thighs take
a little longer. When it looks all brown and glazed, its pretty much done. If
you don’t have sufficient brownage, you can crank the heat on the oven for the
last 5 minutes.

Go watch the movie while it’s cooking. When you are starving
and the plot isn’t so enthralling, and you are ready to eat, remove the chicken
from the oven and toss in the olives and some thick slices of lemon. Mix
thoroughly and return to the oven. By adding the olives and lemon at the end,
their flavors will stay unique and separate instead of just blending in. You
don’t actually eat the lemon pieces, unless you want to, but it’s amazing how
quickly that bit of lemon will release flavor as soon as it hits the heat of
the dish.

Place the mustard vinaigrette dressed salad on one side of
the dinner plate.  Check the action
on the movie or have your spouse yell if anything of interest happens.

Plate the chicken on the other side of the plate, pour a
glass of wine and enjoy your dinner and the movie.

On a frosty January night it doesn’t get more comforting
than this.  (I just read that 3-D
home TV screens will soon be available, so then we can all stay home and watch
Avatar over and over. See, something to look forward to.)