Pot-Roast Chicken with Bacon & Barley

Pot-Roast Chicken with Bacon & Barley

Many moons ago, we worked with a wonderful farm located deep in a Devon valley. It was the perfect location for one of our first free-range poultry enterprises, as its sheltered site made it much harder for airborne diseases to blow over from intensive chicken factories that are an epidemic in this part of the world.

Here we had a breeding flock that lay the eggs which would hatch on the same farm and grow slowly to become the chickens that we sold in both our butcher's shop and through our website. In the breeding flock the hens lived to a good old age, then eventually would finish their lifecycle of laying and become spent. We would sell these old hens at the butcher's counter as 'boiling fowl' — a rather crude name, but one that indicated their purpose.

In this recipe I should be recommending you seek out boiling fowl instead of the chicken advised, but it would be a fool's mission, since in this day and age they simply do not enter the food chain. The sad truth is that most spent hens are slaughtered young and are used as protein meal or oils for animal feed. Millions of birds a year are wasted in this way thanks to a system that is so dysfunctional, I would argue it is now dystopian.

Ingredients

Spring · Serves 4-6

  • 250g (9oz)

    smoked bacon lardons

  • 2

    onions, finely chopped

  • 1

    leek, finely sliced

  • 2

    garlic cloves, finely chopped

  • a knob of grass-fed butter

  • 500g (1lb 2oz)

    mushrooms, sliced

  • 240g (8¾oz)

    pearl barley

  • 2

    bay leaves

  • 2 sprigs

    rosemary

  • 3–4 sprigs

    thyme

  • 600ml (20fl oz)

    chicken stock, warmed

  • 1.7kg (3lb 11oz)

    organic or free-range chicken

  • 100ml (3½fl oz)

    double cream

  • a handful

    fresh herbs (tarragon, chives or parsley work well here)

  • flaky sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Buy available ingredients
Recipe image

Method

Preheat the oven to 190°C/375°F/gas mark 5.

Set a large, cast-iron pot over a medium–high heat. Add the bacon lardons and render down until crispy and golden brown — around 6–7 minutes. Turn the heat down and add the onions, leek and garlic, along with a small pinch of salt, and sweat gently for 7–8 minutes, until softened.

Turn the heat up and add a knob of butter along with the mushrooms. Allow them to caramelize slightly, then tip in the pearl barley, bay leaves, rosemary and thyme and the warm stock. Season the chicken well and place on top of the pearl barley, then cover with foil and roast for 45 minutes.

Remove the foil and roast the chicken for a further 15 minutes, adding a splash of water if needed. Once the chicken is beautifully golden and cooked through, carefully lift it out and leave to rest on a carving board.

Meanwhile, add a little double cream and some fresh herbs to the pan of steaming pearl barley and mix through.

Carve the chicken, giving each person a little bit of both the breast and the leg meat.

Serve with a generous helping of barley and bacon, and perhaps some buttery kale.
Back to blog