Take one chicken... - Part I

Something an awful lot of people seem to struggle with when switching to a primal style of eating is the expense. A diet rich in organic, grass-fed meat can swiftly mount up if you’re not paying attention! All it really takes, though, is looking to our ancestors for a few more pearls of wisdom. They’ve steered us pretty well so far, after all…

The key thing – the thing I try to share through my recipes here – is to learn to love cooking. Not just following a recipe, or making a nutritionally balanced meal, but good old-fashioned cooking. I was lucky – I learned to cook alongside my mother, largely without care for grams or cups or any other such nonsense. She taught me to cook via my senses: by sight, by taste, by smell, by feel, by imagination.

It’s something you only learn with time and a healthy degree of fearlessness. So what if it does all go horribly wrong and end up in the bin? You’re fat adapted, right? Grab a handful of nuts and try again tomorrow!

But even without using any imagination at all, a little extra effort can do wonders for your primal food budget! A simple chicken, for example, made into simple fare. So…

Take one (£7.35, free range, organic) chicken! Leave it to air for about an hour before roasting to help the skin crisp up. Give it a good pat dry with a clean, dry cloth or some kitchen towel before you prep it for the oven.

I gave this one a good slug of apple cider vinegar, then topped with butter to make a lovely rich sauce for basting.

About 20-30 minutes before it was done roasting, I gave it a final baste, then added sprouts, hazelnuts, red onion and red peppers to the pan, coating them thoroughly in the roasting juices. Here they are, cooked to perfection!

Meal #1 – Succulent roast chicken breast with crispy, buttery skin and the veg roasted in basting juice.

Meal #2 – Primal-prescribed Big-ass Salad with a serving of scrambledorf in the middle, and surrounded by my share of the fruits from stripping the chicken legs.

I could easily have padded out the leg meat to make an extra meal, but a little hedonism does a girl good, and we’re not done yet! So keep hold of the carcass, and stay tuned for part two of our exciting mini series, Take One Chicken…

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