This creamy nduja roast chicken, served over crispy, schmaltzy sourdough slices, makes for an epic Sunday roast. It’s inspired by one of my favourite London restaurant dishes, Gold Notting Hill’s wood roasted chicken with nduja, tomatoes and parma ham.
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Ingredient Breakdown
- What’s Nduja?
- Why You Should Be Spatchcocking Your Chicken
- Please Take the Time to Dry-Brine Your Chicken!
- The Bread Trick: What Makes This Creamy Nduja Roast Chicken Extra Special
Introduction
Roast chicken is a staple of comfort food, but when you add the funky, savouriness of nduja, melted into a deliciously creamy sauce, it transforms it into something truly extraordinary. Let’s dive into what makes this Creamy Nduja Roast Chicken so special, starting with a breakdown of the ingredients.
Ingredient Breakdown
- Whole chicken: medium-sized, ideally free-range for the best flavour.
- Salt: for dry brining, essential for juicy chicken and crispy skin.
- Bread: sourdough or a rustic loaf, cut into thick slices. It soaks up all the delicious juices, essentially creating giant, crispy chicken-y croutons – yum!
- Cherry Tomatoes: on the vine as they taste so much better!
- Garlic: everything’s better with garlic, and this recipe uses a healthy amount (6 cloves to be precise).
- Extra-virgin olive oil: just a little to ensuring browning.
- Nduja: a soft, spicy sausage from the region of Calabria in southern Italy.
- Chicken stock: to loosen the sauce.
- Sugar: this is optional but it cuts through the acidity of the tomatoes.
- Mascarpone: this is what makes the sauce nice and creamy.
- Basil: for some added freshness.
What’s Nduja?
Nduja (pronounced en-DOO-ya) is a soft, spicy sausage from the region of Calabria in southern Italy. Flavour wise, it’s salty, smoky and a little funky (the good kind of funk!). Nduja is famous for its fiery heat and creamy texture and it brings a huge depth of flavour to whatever you add it to.
Traditionally, it’s made from pork shoulder, belly, and tripe, and it’s heavily spiced with Calabrian chilies, which give it its characteristic red colour and spicy flavour profile. You can spread nduja on bread, stir it into pasta, use as a pizza topping, or incorporate into sauces. Its unique texture allows it to melt into dishes, infusing them with its intense flavour.
You can find nduja in Italian specialty shops, delis, gourmet markets, online or in some large supermarkets. If you’re UK based, you can source nduja in Waitrose, Sainsbury’s, Ocado and Marks and Spencer. Where possible, opt for a brand that sources its ingredients from Calabria to ensure authenticity.
Why You Should Be Spatchcocking Your Chicken
Spatchcocking a chicken involves removing the backbone so that the bird lies flat. This has several benefits.
- It allows the skin to brown and crisp up more evenly due to more surface area being exposed to the heat.
- It makes for a more evenly cooked bird, ensuring the breasts and legs cook at the same time.
- The flattened shape allows for quicker cooking, reducing the overall time needed in the oven or on the grill.
- This method also makes seasoning and marinating more effective, as the spices can be applied more uniformly across the chicken.
- Overall, spatchcocking enhances both the texture and flavour of the chicken.
To spatchcock a chicken, follow these steps:
- Prepare the Chicken: Place the chicken breast-side down on a cutting board.
- Remove the Backbone: Using sharp kitchen shears, cut along one side of the backbone from tail to neck. Repeat on the other side to fully remove the backbone.
- Flatten the Chicken: Open the chicken and flip it over, breast-side up. Press down firmly on the breastbone with the heel of your hand to flatten it.
- Final Adjustments: Tuck the wings under the breasts to prevent them from burning. The chicken is now ready for seasoning and cooking.
Please Take the Time to Dry-Brine Your Chicken!
Dry brining is a technique you rub salt onto the chicken (or any meat) and leave to rest for several hours or overnight. This process has several benefits:
- Juiciness: Salt draws moisture out of the chicken, which then gets reabsorbed, ensuring moist and flavourful meat.
- Flavour: The salt penetrates deeply, enhancing the overall taste of the chicken.
- Crispy skin: Dry brining helps achieve that coveted crispy, golden-brown skin by drying out the surface of the chicken.
To dry brine, simply rub the chicken generously with salt, and let it rest uncovered in the fridge for at least a few hours, ideally overnight.
The Bread Trick: What Makes This Creamy Nduja Roast Chicken Extra Special
One of the most delightful aspects of this creamy nduja roast chicken is the use of sourdough as a base for roasting the chicken. As the chicken roasts, its juices seep into the bread, creating an intensely flavorful base that’s almost as good as the chicken itself. You’re basically creating giant, crispy chicken-y croutons and they are truly incredible.
Creamy Nduja Roast Chicken
This creamy nduja roast chicken, served over crispy, schmaltzy sourdough slices, makes for an epic Sunday roast. It’s inspired by one of my favourite London restaurant dishes, Gold Notting Hill’s wood roasted chicken with nduja, tomatoes and parma ham.
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour 15 minutes, plus dry-brining time
- Yield: 4 hungry people 1x
Ingredients
- 1 whole medium chicken
- 400g sourdough, cut into 1-inch thick slices
- 6 garlic cloves, smashed
- 300g vine cherry tomatoes
- extra-virgin olive oil
- 50g nduja
- 250ml chicken stock
- 1 tsp sugar, optional
- 100g mascarpone
- small handful fresh basil leaves, roughly torn
Instructions
- Heat your oven to 220℃ / fan 200℃.
- Spatchcock the chicken – it’s easier than you think, I promise! Place the chicken on a chopping board, breast-side down, cavity facing you. Using kitchen shears or sharp scissors, cut down each side of the backbone and remove it (you can save it for stock). Open out the chicken, flip it over so it’s breast-side up and flatten it down using the heel of your hand. Alternatively, you can ask your butcher to spatchcock the chicken for you.
- Generously season the chicken with salt and pepper on both sides. If you have time, let it sit uncovered overnight in the fridge, on a wire rack set in a large baking tray. This is what’s known as dry brining. It ensures the chicken is seasoned all the way to the bone and makes it extra juicy. It also dries out the chicken skin, which facilitates browning and makes it extra crispy. If you don’t have time to dry brine the chicken overnight, dry brine it for at least 1 hour.
- Arrange the sourdough slices in an even layer in a large roasting tin (at least 35cm x 25cm), then top with the garlic cloves.
- Place the chicken on top, ensuring it covers the garlic cloves so they don’t burn. I recommend tucking the wings under the breasts to prevent them from burning. Brush the chicken with extra-virgin olive oil.
- Nestle in the tomatoes in and around the chicken, then drizzle them with extra-virgin olive oil and season with salt and pepper.
- Roast for 45 minutes to 1 hour, or until the chicken reaches an internal temperature of 65℃. If you don’t have a food thermometer, you can check if the chicken is done by piercing it between the leg and the rest of the body – the juices run clear not pink.
- Transfer the chicken to a chopping board to rest, then transfer the sourdough slices to a baking tray and pop them back into the oven to crisp up while the chicken rests. Note: one side of the bread should be nice and crisp; the other side should be nice and soft, almost custardy (like a bread pudding), packed with delicious chicken-y juices.
- Meanwhile, discard the tomato vines and heat a splash of extra-virgin olive oil in a small saucepan set over a medium heat.
- Add the nduja, breaking it up with a wooden spoon. As it heats, it will begin to melt. Once softened, add the jammy tomatoes and garlic from the roasting tin and cook for 1 minute, then add the stock and sugar (if using) and season with salt and pepper. Simmer for 5 minutes.
- Stir in the mascarpone and simmer a further 1 to 2 minutes to bring the sauce together, then remove the saucepan from the heat.
- Carve the chicken then it’s time to assemble.
- Arrange the schmaltzy sourdough slices on a platter or large plate and top with the chicken. Spoon lots and lots of the creamy nduja sauce over the top and finish with the fresh basil. Note: if you have more sauce than you need, save it to have with pasta the next day.
