Roast Chicken with Anchovy, Chilli, Caper and Basil Rub

Those of you who read yesterday’s post will see what we made a “puttanesca pizza”, which is based on pasta puttanesca. Doing so meant that we had some left-over anchovies, which we used up today. We used them up by combining them with chilli, capers and basil in a mortar and pestle, making a delicious-smelling paste. Yes, that it a rather puttanesca-like paste as it turns out.

We rubbed the chicken with this, rubbed some under the skin on on the breasts and also scored the legs and thighs, rubbing into the meat there too. Roasted as for a normal roast chicken, the aromas were at once delicious and confusing. It smelled partially like roast chicken and partially like a pizza. It turned out to be rather good though; the flavours went well with the chicken and we served it with boulangere potatoes, which were a very good accompaniment.

In case anyone is interested, the recipe for the paste went something like this:

4 anchovies in oil, drained
half a fresh long red chilli
1 teaspoon salted capers, rinsed and drained
small bunch of basil

Crush the chilli in a mortar and pestle, then add the capers. When this has been made into a paste, add the anchovies and basil and crush that too until it has all reduced to a smoothish paste. Then use the paste to rub into your chicken as described above. This would be good as a stuffing for chicken breasts too if you don’t want to do a whole chicken.