Pink Spiced Chicken

This recipe works as a puree or as chunks of meat with the pureed sauce on top. My bub likes having a strip of the chicken covered in the sauce in one hand and a baked potato in the other hand. I usually serve it with a simple salad and baked potatoes. My bub especially likes sprouts and grated carrot so I try to include those in the salad and gets the little pincer pinch fingers working too. It makes about 3-4 adult portions and 2 baby portions of you want to do it for two nights in a row. It works really well pureed (the chicken pureed in with the vege) and in the freezer too.

Ingredients

• 1 whole chicken

• 1 sweet potato 

• 2 large beetroot (if you're doing box divvy you can do one golden beet and one red beet makes it so yum)

• 1 onion

• 1 head of garlic

• 1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika 

• 1/2 teaspoon cumin

• 2 teaspoons garam masala 

• 1 tablespoon garlic powder 

• 1 teaspoon onion powder 

• 1/4 teaspoon Cayenne pepper

• 2 tablespoons olive oil

Method

1. Chop all the veg into 2cm chunks. Peel the garlic but don't need to chop it. 

2. Put the veg into the bottom of a deep baking dish. You want it kind of squished up a bit, not loose in there, so the dish should be deep but not too big.

3. Put the chicken on top of the veg. The juices from the chicken will collect in the pan and cook with the veg, this is going to be the sauce so you want to make the chicken a cosy bed on those veg. 

4. Mix your spices in a small bowl and then coat it over the chicken. Flip the chicken around so you're covering all sides. 

5. Pour the olive oil over the top then cover it with aluminium foil to seal in the juices.

6. Bake at 180 degrees for 75-90 minutes depending on your oven. Then take off the aluminium foil and bake for another 20 minutes so the chicken gets a little crispy. 

7. Lift the chicken onto a carving board or into a bowl and let it rest. 

8. Puree the veg in the bottom of the dish until it's smooth

9. Serve hunks of the chicken covered in the sauce with baked potatoes and salad, or you can puree the chicken with the veg for squeezer feeds. 

Notes:

🦴 The benefit of cooking the whole chicken with bones is theyre extra juicy which makes the sauce richer,  it thighs and breasts on their own work just as well and are less fiddly.

⭐ Beets are super high in iron and their vitamin C content helps you absorb the iron from the beet and anything else you're eating it with.