Deb’s Kitchen | Roasted cherry tomato chicken with lemon zucchini salad

6 chicken thigh fillets bone in and skin on

400g cherry tomatoes

70ml olive oil

1 lemon (juice and finely grated rind)

4 garlic cloves finely chopped and crushed

2 tbsp thyme leaves

1tsp freshly cracked black pepper and a pinch of sea salt

50g pecorino cheese finely grated

Lemon zucchini salad

3 zucchinis, thinly sliced lengthways on a mandoline, or you can use a potato peeler

1 tbsp fresh oregano leaves finely chopped

1 lemon (juice and finely grated rind)

50ml extra-virgin olive oil

Freshly cracked black pepper and sea salt to taste

Method

Chicken and tomatoes

Preheat the oven to 200°C.

Place chicken and tomatoes on separate trays lined with baking paper. Combine oil, lemon juice, lemon rind, garlic and thyme in a bowl and season with freshly cracked black pepper and sea salt.

Drizzle half the mixture over the chicken and the remaining over the tomatoes.

Bake the chicken in the oven for 15 to 20 minutes until golden and cooked through. Take the chicken out of the oven and let it rest for 5 minutes.

Place the tomatoes in the oven at the same time as the chicken and bake for 10 to 12 minutes. Take tomatoes out of the oven and let them rest until you are ready to serve the chicken.

When serving, drizzle some of the roasted cherry tomato juices over the chicken.

Lemon zucchini salad

Place thinly sliced zucchini strips in a medium-sized salad bowl, then make the dressing.

Dressing

In another small bowl, combine olive oil, lemon juice, finely grated lemon rind, freshly ground black pepper and a pinch of sea salt; give it a whisk to combine. Drizzle the dressing over the thinly sliced zucchini strips, toss gently with clean hands, and set aside to marinate for 5 minutes.

Scatter the zucchini with the finely grated pecorino cheese and finely chopped oregano and serve with the chicken and roasted tomatoes.

Deb’s tips

If the chicken thigh fillets have excess skin around them, trim around the edges, leaving the skin covering the chicken.

You need the zucchini finely sliced for the salad, so a mandoline is a great option. If you don’t have a mandoline, you can get a similar result using a potato peeler.

The lemon juice in the zucchini dressing tenderises the zucchini, leaving it with a crunch but also giving it a beautiful silkiness, taking out the rawness of the zucchini.

The zucchini salad can also be divided among serving plates. The chicken, cherry tomatoes and zucchini salad look great together on the plate. Make sure you scatter the pecorino cheese and oregano on top of the zucchini salad.

If you have friends with allergies to garlic and onion, just leave the garlic out of the marinade, which makes this dish gluten-free, carb-free and garlic- and onion-free. But most importantly, it’s vibrant and delicious.