Skin-on chicken breast stuffed with chorizo

The first Friday of every month is Newcastle farmers market. We tend to buy in bulk to fill the freezer for the month, and this month was no exception – we left with two grouse, an organic chicken, a joint of lamb shoulder, an Aberdeen Angus sirloin steak, rare breed pork ribs and chorizo spiced sausage, dry cured bacon, some local brie and some local organic veg including a couple of corn on the cob. We also signed up for 5kg of Scottish blackface mutton for £25 to collect next month, so expect some mutton recipes as of November!

 The free range organic chicken from http://www.northumberlandpoultry.co.uk/index.php is 2.2kg monster! It’d be silly to roast it for just the two of us so I decided to joint it, giving us two generous breast portions, two enormous leg portions and a carcass with a load of meat still on it. The carcass will be roasted, the meat stripped off (risotto? salad? sandwich? soup?) and the bones slowly simmered for the most incredible stock. These slow growing organic birds have strong, well developed bones that make the most delicious broth. They are simply a world away from the supermarket intensively farmed broilers, and I for one would rather eat a little of a good thing than a lot of something insipid, bland and morally questionable. The chicken breasts, with the skin left on, got stuffed with a little of the chorizo sausage meat, seasoned with sweet smoked paprika, salt and pepper and rubbed in oil. I browned them in a hot pan for a couple of minutes each side then finished them in a hot oven for about 20 minutes, on top of some veg (courgette, aubergine, onion, chilli and whole garlic cloves) that had already been roasting for about half an hour. I served the chicken with the roast veg and, for a little freshness, some tomato and spring onion tossed in sea salt, black pepper, olive oil and lemon juice. This was the result:

Tasty!