As I spent the weekend browsing through the food blogs and Instagram accounts that I follow, I came across the mention of Jamie Oliver’s infamous recipe for “Chicken in Milk” as the best chicken dish they had ever tasted.

Chicken cooked in Milk!? Really?

When you look at the components of the recipe it is quite a peculiar combination. Lemons, cinnamon, sage and milk.

OK Lets do this….

Chicken in Milk Recipe

Prep: approx. 15 min
Cook: 1 hr 40 min

Adapted from Chicken in Milk | Chicken Recipes | Jamie Oliver Recipes

Chicken in Milk served with mashed potatoes and sautéed spinach

Ingredients

Assembling the ingredients

• 1 (3 pound/ 1.5 kilogram) whole chicken
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1/4 cup of  butter or 4 tbsp of EV olive oil
• 1/2 of chopped Sweet Vidalia onion
• 1-2 cinnamon sticks
• 1 good handful fresh sage, leaves picked
• zest of 2 lemons
• 10+ garlic cloves, peeled
• 2 1/2 cups of skim milk

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F, and find a snug-fitting covered pot for the chicken. (I used my Oval French Oven | Le Creuset Canada )

Season the chicken very generously all over with salt and pepper, and fry it in the butter/olive oil, turning it to get an even colour all over, until golden.

The tasty goodness at the bottom of the pan can be used to lightly saute the onions.

Add the remaining ingredients and place your chicken back in the pot, and cook covered in the preheated oven for 1 hour.

Braised Chicken

Baste with the cooking juice when you remember. Cook under covered for the last 40 minutes of cooking.

The lemon zest will sort of split the milk, leaving little curds bathed in chicken juices, and not homogenized; this appearance is less appealing. Remove the cinnamon sticks, and used an immersion hand blender to make sauce infused with lemon and balanced with an aromatic flavour from the cinnamon and sage.

To serve, pull the meat off the bones and divide it on to your plates. Spoon over plenty of the lemony sauce over the chicken.

Serve with wilted spinach and some mashed potatoes. And a crusty baguette would be great to sop up the delicious sauce.

Chicken in Milk with sauteed Spinach, grilled Asparagus, smashed potatoes in a Lemony Corn Sauce

Tip: Make sure that you season the chicken very generously. Any extra time that you take to brown the chicken on ALL sides will embark more flavour in the end product. Try to achieve a deep golden colour on the skin.

The next time I make this I will also add the juice of 1 lemon for an added kick. 😉