Chicken in Milk

When I chanced upon this recipe, my first thought was gross, chicken in milk? Blerggghh.
Then curiousity got the better of me, I started googling for reviews and all of the stellar blog posts convinced me to give this a try.

Jamie Oliver's recipe for Chicken in Milk below:

Ingredients:

• 1.5 kg higher-welfare chicken
• sea salt
• freshly ground black pepper
• olive oil
• ½ stick cinnamon
• 1 good handful fresh sage, leaves picked
• zest of 2 lemons
• 10 cloves garlic, skin left on
• 565 ml milk
  
  
  Preheat the oven to 190°C/375°F/gas 5, and find a snug-fitting pot for the chicken. Season it generously all over, and fry it in a little olive oil, turning the chicken to get an even colour all over, until golden. Remove from the heat, put the chicken on a plate, and throw away the oil left in the pot. This will leave you with tasty sticky goodness at the bottom of the pan which will give you a lovely caramel flavour later on.
  
  Put your chicken back in the pot with the rest of the ingredients, and cook in the preheated oven for 1½ hours. Baste with the cooking juice when you remember. The lemon zest will sort of split the milk, making a sauce which is absolutely fantastic.
  
  To serve, pull the meat off the bones and divide it onto your plates. Spoon over plenty of juice and the little curds. Serve with wilted spinach or greens and some mashed potato.   

A couple of tips and tricks that I used based on reviews:

• If you don't have cinnamon at home, you can skip it. Won't make a huge difference
• Add in rosemary and thyme (as in the herbs, not the MAC eye kohl) 
• The original recipe did not specify if the chicken was to be covered so I covered the pan with tin foil and then roasted it un-covered at the last 15 mins for a crispier chook. 

The first time I made it, I'd to hide the milk from Hubs who would have refused to even touch it as he has an aversion to what he terms as weird recipes. I only confessed to the milk when both Hubs and Bubs polished their plates clean. 

Bon appetit!