Make sure to buy a free-range bird here – you’ll be rewarded with better flavour in the meat as well as the pasta, as it absorbs the juices.
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Yields:
6 serving(s)
Prep Time:
30 mins
Cook Time:
1 hr 30 mins
Total Time:
2 hrs
Cal/Serv:
677
Ingredients
2Tbsp.
olive oil
1
medium whole chicken, about 1.7kg
2
carrots, cut into 1.5cm pieces
1
leek, finely sliced
2
celery sticks, sliced
100g
pancetta lardons
1
lemon, cut into 6 wedges
1
tarragon sprig, plus extra leaves, chopped, to garnish
500ml
hot chicken stock
300
orzo pasta
Directions
Step 1Preheat oven to 190°C (170°C fan) mark 5. Heat oil over medium-high heat in a casserole dish (that has a lid) that will hold the chicken with some space around it. Untruss the chicken and brown in the casserole, breast down, until breast is golden. Remove chicken to a board.
Step 2Add carrots, leek, celery and pancetta to the dish and cook for 5min, until beginning to brown. Stir in lemon wedges, tarragon sprig and plenty of seasoning. Return chicken to the casserole dish, breast up. Pour in enough stock to come halfway up the sides of the chicken. Bring to the boil.
Step 3Cover with the lid and cook in the oven for 50min. Carefully remove lid, scatter the orzo around the chicken, making sure the orzo is submerged in the stock, re-cover with the lid and return to the oven for 20min. Check the chicken is cooked; a meat thermometer inserted into the thickest part of the breast should read 72°C or higher.
Step 4Carefully transfer the casserole dish to a board and leave to rest for 10min. Scatter over chopped tarragon and serve.
An experienced and highly skilled team of food writers, stylists and digital content producers, the Good Housekeeping Cookery Team is a close-knit squad of food obsessives. Cookery Editor Emma Franklin is our resident chilli obsessive and barbecue expert, who spends an inordinate amount of time on holidays poking round the local supermarkets seeking out new and exciting foods. Senior Cookery Writer Alice Shields is a former pastry chef and baking fanatic who loves making bread and would have peanut butter with everything if she could. Her favourite carb is pasta, and our vibrant green spaghetti is her weeknight go-to. Lover of all things savoury, Senior Cookery Writer Grace Evans can be found eating crispy corn and nocellara olives at every opportunity, and will take the cheeseboard over dessert any time (though she cannot resist a slice of tres leches cake). With a wealth of professional kitchen know-how, culinary training and years of experience between them, they are all dedicated to ensuring every Good Housekeeping recipe is the best it can be, so you can trust they’ll work (and if they don’t – we’ll have the answer for why*) every time (*90% of the time the answer is: “buy an separate oven thermometer”!).
