Fun for every day.

Go on. One more food post before moving to something else for the next one, but this one has actually been requested.

So I have been trying to do batch meals in an attempt to save money, lose weight and oddly experiment more. So my experiment for sunday was a Moroccan roast chicken.

This is a bit of a misnomer, as the Moroccans themselves would be far more likely to grill the chicken than to roast, but I hoped that the introduction of a few new flavours would do something impressive to an old recipe.

So. A chicken. Take it whole (albeit without the internals), with the skin on preferably. In a blender, mix four cloves of garlic, about a tablespoon of coriander leaves (finely chopped) and some saffron (for the saffron, it should be about half a teaspoon of saffron that has been soaked in 2 tablespoons of hot water first). Once it is a coarse paste, simply put, take this mixture and rub it into the chicken under the skin. Drop some inside the chicken, rub it, caress it, whatever, but this mix should go on the meat.

Next take a mixture of 1 tablespoon paprika, half a teaspoon of cumin, a pinch of cayenne, half a teaspoon of black pepper and a pinch of ground ginger. Mix those spices together (by hand is fine) and then coat everything. The meat, the skin (especially the skin), the cat, everything (except your eyes, possibly).

Now whack it in the oven as normal to cook. You should really cover it at first, but (and I didn't get this bit quite right this time, which is why I'm keen you should get it right) make sure you take off the foil/covering for long enough that you can get the skin a little crispy.

Serve with what you feel like, we actually had the usual potatoes, parsnips, peas, carrots. But the extra flavours in the chicken make it seriously tasty.

But the main part about this is what to do for the rest of the time. Now there were only two of us eating the evening meal, but since then I've managed to get a good few meals out of the old bird. All with that lovely Moroccan flavour. First, and most bleeding obvious, chicken mayo sandwiches. Add the chicken, add some mayo, always add some black pepper, whack on some salad and you're done. Simple, but the Moroccan flavours mix with the mayo to create something a little more special.

The other obvious one is leftovers. Chicken is awesome, and this stuff is delicious on its own, even reheated. So mine was with some sautéed new potatoes (just to give them some nice crunch) and plentiful veg.

The last and distinctly more unusual (gifted to me largely by my beloved, in that she reminded me what day it was and insisted on having pancakes) was to use them in pancakes. Now what I actually did was create a savoury pancake on my raclette with the chicken, chili, cheese and ham. What I would have done (had I not run out of serviceable ingredient) would have been to have chorizo in there instead.

So. As batch meals go, that's a pretty good one. And if you're prepared to do so, you can go further into the boiling and soup making territory, but for me that will do for this week.

Oh, and obligatory pancake photo.