Yotam Ottolenghi's chicken sofrito and smoky corn salad recipes | Food (2024)

This relatively simple Sephardic dish yields many layers of comforting flavours. The corn salad that follows it makes a perfect match. If you have a pan that’s wide enough to hold the whole chicken flat, butterfly the bird by cutting through the centre of the breast until it opens up (or ask a butcher to do it for you). Serves four.

1 tbsp sunflower oil
1 small free-range chicken (about 1.5kg), butterflied or quartered
1 tsp sweet paprika
¼ tsp ground turmeric
¼ tsp sugar
Salt and black pepper
2½ tbsp lemon juice
1 large onion, peeled and quartered
Sunflower oil, for frying
25 garlic cloves, unpeeled
750g charlotte potatoes, peeled, washed, patted dry and cut into 2cm dice

Turn over the chicken, add the onion and cover the pot with a lid. Reduce the heat to low and leave for 30 minutes, occasionally checking the amount of juice at the bottom of the pan: add a little water, if needed, so there’s always around 5mm.

After the chicken has been cooking for 30 minutes, add enough sunflower oil to a medium, deep-sided saucepan to come 3cm up the sides. Bring up tomedium-high heat, then carefully fry the unpeeled garlic cloves and cubed potatoes in batches for about six minutes, until they take on some colour. Use a slotted spoon to transfer them to a paper towel, to drain, sprinkle with salt, and repeat with the remaining potatoes and garlic.

After the chicken has been cooking for an hour, lift the bird from the pan and stir the potatoes and garlic into the cooking juices. Put the chicken on top of the potatoes and cook for another 30 minutes, by which time the meat should be falling off the bone. When serving, drizzle with alittle fresh lemon juice.

Smoky corn salad (V)

If you can’t get corn with husks, don’t have the right kit or are not too keen on playing around with smoke, just brush your corn with alittle olive oil and cook it on a hot, ridged griddle pan for 10 minutes, turning frequently, then carry on with the instructions in the final paragraph. My thanks to Sarit Packer for this. Serves four.

Remove the husks from the corn and use 30g of the husks and the lemon thyme to line the base of an extra-large pan or wok into which you can fit a metal colander, rack or steaming basket. You’ll also need to be able to seal the pot with a tight-fitting lid.

Top and tail the corn cobs and cut each in two widthways. Put the pan with the husks and thyme on high heat and, once they begin to smoke (after about four minutes), put the corn in the colander, place inside the hot pan and cover tight with a lid. Leave on high heat for five minutes, remove from the heat, then leave, covered, for five minutes more. Take off the lid and set the pan aside until the corn comes to room temperature.

• Yotam Ottolenghi is chef/patron of Ottolenghi and Nopi in London.

• This article was edited on 27 October 2020, to clarify that the potatoes should be thoroughly dried after washing.