Slow Burner Dry Rub Chicken with a Tarragon and Cashew Slaw

This is absolutely fantastic to cook and share with friends on a summer evening, sat outside with a few beers. The dish is fragrant, earthy, smoky, herby and exciting, and relies on nothing more than a great quality free-range chicken and some patience. The custom dry rub is easy to knock up in a few minutes and adds so much flavour. If you fancy, serve it up with fresh watercress or sorrel and grill up some sourdough to mop up the juices.

Ingredients 

Whole roast chicken (about 2.5kg)

2 lemons

Dry Rub: 

1 tsp cumin seeds

1 star anise

1 tsp fennel seeds

1 tsp mustard seeds

1 cinnamon stick

2 cardamom pods

2 cloves

4 black peppercorns

Small chunk of nutmeg

Sprig fresh rosemary

Sprig fresh thyme

2 tsp paprika (smoked)

2 tsp cayenne pepper

Slaw:

½ sweetheart cabbage

½ red cabbage

1 large carrot

40g (1½oz) chopped fresh tarragon

75g (2½oz) chopped cashew nuts

Handful parsley, chives and coriander

300g jar of good mayonnaise

Cracked black pepper

Method 

Preheat oven to 140C. ‘Spatchcock’ the chicken by turning it breast side down with feet towards you, use some culinary scissors to cut either side of the ‘parsons nose’ and remove the backbone and giblets inside the chicken. Turn back over and deeply score the chicken through the skin, right into the flesh, giving big juicy crevices for the dry rub to find its way into.

In a heavy bottom pan, slowly heat and toast the cumin seeds, star anise, fennel seeds, cinnamon stick, cardamom pods, cloves, mustard seeds, peppercorns and nutmeg. Once they start to become lively and fragrant in the pan, transfer into a pestle and mortar along with the paprika and cayenne pepper and grind into a powder – the smell at this point will give you an idea of the way this recipe is going.

Drizzle some olive oil over the prepared chicken and work your spice rub all over it, covering every last bit and using all of the dry rub mix. Once seasoned, put in a roasting tin on top of the quartered lemons and cook for 2 hours at 140C, (or longer depending on the size of the chicken). Once cooked through, rest under tin foil for 15 minutes before serving – this will ensure the chicken pulls effortlessly off the bones.

For the Slaw: 

No fancy equipment needed. With a sharp knife, finely slice the sweetheart and red cabbage, and coarsely grate the carrot. Roughly chop all of the herbs (tarragon, parsley, chives and coriander) and, in a big bowl, mix in the whole jar of mayonnaise and the cashews, then squeeze lemon juice and season to taste with black pepper.

Serve on a big plank of wood with some fresh watercress and toast for the ultimate sharing platter.