Chicken in a Pot with Lemon Orzo

1. Gather the ingredients.

   

2. Untruss chicken, if it comes trussed, and remove string. If time allows, let it stand out on a board for 40 minutes or so. Heat oven to 350°F.Peel garlic cloves. Peel and cut carrots into three lengths across, and then into sticks.

   

3. Heat oil in a large heavy Dutch oven with a tightly fitting lid over high heat. Place chicken in hot oil breast side down and sear until skin is richly golden; 3 to 5 minutes. Turn chicken over so breast side is up.

   

4. Take Dutch oven off heat and, aiming for the space around the chicken, finely grate in zest from lemons. Grate garlic around chicken (obviously some can end up on the chicken itself), add dried tarragon, and give a quick stir in oil as best you can.

   

5. Scatter vegetables around chicken, followed by salt and red pepper flakes (if using). Squeeze in juice from your zested lemons.

   

6. Pour in cold water — covering all but the very top of the breast — and put Dutch oven back on high heat to bring to a boil.

   

7. Once it's bubbling, cover with lid and carefully transfer to oven. Cook chicken for 1 hour and 15 minutes, then check to make sure chicken is all but cooked through and carrots are soft.

   

8. Remove pot from oven and add orzo all around chicken, pushing it under liquid and stirring as best you can manage in the restricted space. Cover pot with lid and return to oven. Cook until orzo is soft and swollen, about 15 minutes.

   

9. Remove Dutch oven from oven and let stand, covered, for 15 minutes before serving; orzo will continue to soak up broth as it stands.

   

10. While orzo finishes, chop parsley. Stir in ¼ cup, then sprinkle over a little more. You could shred the chicken now, but it looks so wonderful in its pot I like to bring it to the table whole.

    

11. Place a dish by the Dutch oven, then pull chicken gently apart with a couple of forks, removing any bones and skin that come loose. (For me, these bits are a particular treat: I live for the cartilage.) I find it easiest to do this while the chicken's still in the pot but, if you prefer, you can try to remove it to a cutting board; go carefully as it's likely to fall to pieces a bit as you do so.

    

12. Stir chicken and orzo again and ladle into bowls, sprinkling with parsley as you go. You may also want to offer Parmesan to grate over: I prefer it without, but there is a strong pro-Parmesan contingent in my house.

    

Notes

Although this isn't easily scaled down, in light of the fact that a whole chicken has the starring role, I do often make a version of it for a soothing solo supper. For this, you don't need the oven, as it's frankly easier to cook it all on the stove; you could, of course, cook the recipe proper on the stove and not in the oven, but I find there is more evaporation of the flavorsome liquid that way. Anyway, get out a small saucepan with a tightly fitting lid, heat 1 teaspoon of olive oil, and put a large chicken thigh (bone-in and skin-on) in it, skin side down. Let it fry for a good 10 minutes over medium heat until it's golden brown. While that's happening, peel and finely dice a smallish carrot, slice a small leek or half of a large one, and peel a fat clove of garlic.

Once the chicken skin has browned, take the pan off the heat, turn the chicken thigh skin side up, and finely grate the zest of half a lemon into the pan, then mince or grate the garlic in as well, followed by ½ teaspoon of dried tarragon or thyme. Add the prepared carrot and leek and pour 2 cups of light chicken broth over, though this doesn't have to be homemade. (You don't get enough flavor from one chicken thigh cooked for a relatively short time to be able to use water alone.) Add a pinch of red pepper flakes and ½ teaspoon of flaky sea salt or kosher salt (or ¼ teaspoon of fine sea salt) unless the broth you're using is salty enough. Give a bit of a stir and put back on the heat, this time at high; bring to a boil.

Once it starts bubbling, clamp on a lid and turn the heat to low (or medium-low, depending on how big the burner is); cook at a firm simmer for about 40 minutes. Check that the chicken and cubes of carrot are cooked through; it is as essential that the carrots are soft as it is that the chicken is well cooked. Add ¼ cup of orzo to the pan, making sure it's all submerged, replace the lid, and cook over medium heat for 10 to 12 minutes until soft. Leave the pan on the stove, with the lid still on but the heat off, for another 10 minutes or so. Then shred the chicken thigh with a couple of forks (the skin will be flabby, so you may want to remove it along with the bones) and decant to a large bowl, adding freshly chopped parsley, some leaves and sprigs of thyme, or feathery fresh dill.

Recipe from Cook, Eat, Repeat: Ingredients, Recipes, and Stories by Nigella Lawson. Copyright 2021 Nigella Lawson. Excerpted by permission of Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.