Recipes, Chicken Recipes

Jaffna roast chicken

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Deeply aromatic with a spice mix that includes fennel seeds, coriander seeds, and fenugreek, this whole roast chicken recipe is one of the most delicious and well-known recipes in Sri Lanka. It’s best served with flatbreads, rice, dahl, or a zingy salad.

Jaffna-Roast-Chicken

Serves 4-6

Ingredients

Spice mix

Remaining ingredients

Method

  1. Preheat the oven to 170°C.
  2. Toast all the spices for the spice mix in a dry pan. Once it smells aromatic, remove from the heat and grind to a powder.
  3. Mix the spice mix powder with the rest of the ingredients, except the chicken.
  4. Smother the chicken in the mixture and then place breast side down in a baking tray that is relatively snug. Pour over all the mix.
  5. Roast for 45 minutes. At this point, flip the chicken over. If the liquid level is running low, then top this up with a little extra water.
  6. Roast for a further 45 minutes. Turn the heat up to 180°C and roast for a final 10 minutes.

Shop the ingredients

Anna commenced her cookery career under Jeremy Lee at the Blueprint Café and rose to the challenge of head chef at Rochelle Canteen. However, Anna’s classical cookery education, and much of what inspires her signature unpretentious European fare harks back to her childhood. The daughter of Serbian parents, Anna spent much of her youth with her hands in French and Italian soil, assisting her grandparents in their vegetable gardens. These formative experiences with field to plate food production inform much of Anna’s focus on seasonal ingredients, and her mantra of keeping it simple. Anna and her partners (the team behind 40 Maltby Street) launched Café Deco in November 2020; the timing of which really tested her mettle. However, the demand for simple, honest food, executed well, has seen Anna establish Café Deco as a sought-after destination restaurant.