Everyone’s in a hurry these days. Good old fashioned roast chicken is for high days and holidays when there is time to share with friends and family. But mostly we need something quickly to fuel us for the next busy business…..

4 chicken pieces
streaky bacon or panacetta
new potatoes
2 garlic cloves crushed (optional)
parsley chopped
olive oil & nob of butter

Rub the chicken pieces with salt and pepper and wrap in bacon or panacetta. Heat the butter and oil in a heavy pan that has a lid. Put in the chicken sizzle, turn it over, sizzle. Put the lid on the pan and let the sizzle continue over a low heat for about 40 minutes. Check the chicken and your e-mails.
Once again cut into a piece of chicken to assure yourself it’s cooked and if satisfied remove from the pan and keep warm. Drain off most of the fat (keep for cooking potatoes another day..yum!) add garlic, wine or lemon juice. Give it a good stir, add salt and pepper . Put the chicken on a plate. Pour and scrape the sauce over it all. Add tomatoes and olives, chunks of fresh bread or new potatoes to make truly delicious quick supper!

I am amazed, as I run through my large collection of old cookery books,
how our eating habits have changed over the years. The menus of thirty,
forty, fifty years ago sound so heavy now; even during those frugal
years of rationing in the 1940’s and 50’s and daunting childhood
memories of school food! All this before the food revolution of the
Sixties and the indelible mark of Elizabeth David on our diet.

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