Roasted Chicken with asparagus and cherry tomatoes

Last night I did a variation of a Jamie Oliver recipe.

2 chicken breasts with skin on (each person gets one breast, you have to have each breast in its own foil parcel).

50 gms butter (real butter, not like in a tub)

1 clove garlic

6 sprigs fresh thyme

sea salt

freshly ground pepper

1 lemon

1 bunch asparagus

10 or so cherry tomatoes


Preheat oven to 200 celcius

Make a parcel of foil, by getting a long piece of foil (about your arms length) and fold in half, then fold up all the sides to make a little foil dish for everything to sit on.

Cut cherry tomatoes in half, place half of these in each foil parcel.

Snap ends off asparagus and place half the quantity in each parcel.

chop up the clove of garlic and take off the leaves of 4 sprigs of thyme (use the other 2 sprigs as decoration for the top of the chicken breast)

Add the garlic and thyme, salt and pepper to the butter which has been cut into 2cm pieces (so they can fit under the skin of the breast).

Place as much of the butter under the breasts as you can, put remaining butter around the breast in the foil. Grate the grind from the lemon onto both breasts and then squeeze the lemon onto both breasts.

fold up the foil as around the breast making sure the juice etc can't escape, but leaving room for air and the skin to brown a little.




place on a tray in the middle rack of the oven. Takes around 25-35 mins to cook depending on your oven. Pour a little of the juice left in the foil as you serve it onto the plate.



I served with roasted vegetables.
The way Jamie does it is serves it with fresh rosemary and white wine (I didn't have any white wine) but you could also use basil or taragon, they both go well with chicken too.