Nici Wickes: Rosemary Chicken and Lentils

Pulses and legumes. They’re filling, nourishing, super versatile and cheap and yet many of us would be lucky to eat them more than once or twice a month. Would it encourage you if I told you they’re necessary, yes necessary, for a balanced diet? 

This one-pot dish is tasty and wonderfully easy to throw together. 

Serves 4 

Ingredients 

1 400g tin lentils, drained 

2 tbsps olive oil 

4-6 pieces chicken, skin on, bone in 

1 onion, diced 

1 carrot, peeled and diced 

Few sprigs of rosemary 

1 cup vegetable to chicken stock (can use water) 

2 tbsps pomegranate molasses 

Salt and pepper to season 

Small handful parsley to garnish 

 

Method 

1. Heat oil in rinsed saucepan and brown chicken.

2. Add onion, carrots and rosemary and sauté for 2-3 minutes.

3. Pour in stock and pomegranate molasses, cover and simmer for 25 minutes or until chicken is cooked through.

4. Add in lentils and simmer with lid off for 5-10 minutes. Taste and season with salt and pepper. 

5. Garnish with parsley and serve with salad. 

 

Make it your own: 

Use cannellini beans in place of lentils. 

Change it up with some grated ginger and soy sauce in place of rosemary and pomegranate molasses. 

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack team podcast
from News Talks at me.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
I know that our cook, Nicki Weiks will be much
less cynical about ray Gun's breakout performance at the Olympic
Games and her subsequent in for me, good morning.

Speaker 3 (00:22):
Good morning ray guns Gun.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
I mean, yeah, whatever, that's the spirit.

Speaker 3 (00:27):
I still enjoyed watching that. I watched. I watched Nadia Komenichi.
Oh yeah, he is banging a stick on the ground
and that was just fantastic. That was a bit of
a highlight.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
But anyway, hey, we're talking about this morning, which is great,
very timely, because I got home last night late from work.
Friday was always a mession for me. Got home from work,
was freezing cold. We had nothing in the house, or
at least I thought we had nothing, because we had
a couple of cancer lentils. I had about a third
a stick of charrizzo, a little bit of a couple
of a couple of spices, a little bit of garlic.

(01:02):
Bob's your uncle delicious. The thing with lents is you
can just turn a meal out on nothing. Yeah but
you can, you really can.

Speaker 3 (01:09):
And yeah, and look, I just love to hear that
because that is a pantry staple used well. And we
often think, oh, we've got nothing in the house, what
rubbish we have. We've got plenty. We're holding stock, as
I say, people with our cans and that, and I
think legoms, chickpeas, you know, all those sort of things
are just you know, the beans and all that kind
of thing are fantastic. Lentils they've got a bit of

(01:30):
a bad rap. I love them to bits, and you're right,
they make a really satisfying meal, packedful of protein, packedful
of amino acids that our body needs. So let's face it,
we are not talking about these being an option in
your diet. They're actually necessary. Not eating some beans, some chickpeas,
frozen peas they count, or lentils, your body's actually not

(01:50):
getting something that it really needs every single week. So
it's like not drinking water.

Speaker 2 (01:55):
You wouldn't tame of it.

Speaker 3 (01:56):
But look, I've got a roastby chicken and lentils and
this is just an absolutely beautiful dish. It's it's just
to stand by in my house. Look, I've scaled this
up a bit to serve about four people, and it
takes a whole tin of lentoyx, because sometimes it's a
pain to have half a tin lentace digging around. I
hate some oil in a and a saucepan, and I
brown the chicken. I add into the and then I

(02:19):
can take the chicken out if you like. And then
you know, if you want to brown the onions and
carrots without it, or if your pot's big enough, you
can cram it all in there. One large onion chopped,
one large carrot chopped, a nice big sprig of rosemary.
You could use time as well. In this saute that
all for about two or three minutes, and then pour
in about a cup of stock. You can even use water.
Jack doesn't matter a bit. The next option, the next

(02:41):
little ingredient the pomegranate molasses. You might go, I haven't
got that. It's got a sweetness, it's got a tag
to it. So if you don't have any pomegran granite molasses,
I'm gonna say, why not put a squeeze of lemon
juice and half a teaspoon of brown sugar. That'll get
you there. I mean, you know it's different, but it'll
kind of give you the same notes if you like.
I'm using two tablespoons of pomegranate molasses. I cover that

(03:02):
pot and then I sim it for about twenty twenty
five minutes. The chicken should be cooked through. I use
drums for this. I love the sort of the succulentness
of that bone, the bone and skin on, all that
sort of thing. When that chicken looks like it's cooked.
Add in your lentils. You can drain those off beforehand,
I think is a good idea. Otherwise, that gelatinous kind

(03:23):
of liquid around it. I don't love that, So add
in your drained lentils similar with the lid off for
five or ten minutes.

Speaker 2 (03:30):
That will just reduce it a little bit.

Speaker 3 (03:32):
Taste it, season it with a bit of salt and pepper,
Serve it with a salad, Serve it on its own,
garnish it with some parsley. It's amazing, Jack, It's such
a beautiful dish, and a really lovely one for these
sort of not quite so cold but still sort of
cozy nights.

Speaker 2 (03:47):
Yeah, yeah, cozy. That's a good way to put it,
a cozy night in Yeahndelini.

Speaker 3 (03:53):
Beans you can use. You can use those there. I've
also done this where I've swapped out the pomegranate molasses
and the rosemen and still lots of greater ginger and
some soy sauce in there, and then you've got a
kind of more of an Asian style and it's just
as beautiful.

Speaker 2 (04:06):
Oh yeah, okay, Yeah, that's the thing. It's quite versatile.
You can actually just change the you can just change
a couple of little ingredients there, and you get quite
quite a different flavor profile. Absolutely, I've said it once,
I've said it thrice. I'll say it every time you're
on the show. Any recipe with pomegranate molasses gets the
jack Tame seal of approval.

Speaker 1 (04:25):
Oh I love it.

Speaker 3 (04:26):
I thought you were going to say you get flooded
with texts and emails.

Speaker 1 (04:30):
We were going, oh that ingredient.

Speaker 3 (04:32):
We bought it once and we never use it again.
I use it with everything. You must be the same
addressing on ice cream. It's just throw it at a
stew It's it's a magic.

Speaker 2 (04:41):
It's what makes a ling ling, isn't it. And I
just feel like, yeah, very good, all right, you take
care and we will catch again. Very so thank you
so much. Nicki Necki works there, our cook with her
recipe for this week that Rosemary chicken and length of
recipe will be up on the News Talks He'd be website.
If you're wanting to cook along at home, have a
cozy night in this evening, perhaps you're gonna sit down

(05:04):
listen to Elliot Smith's Call is the All Black Take
on Los Pumas at Eden Park at seven o'clock tonight.
The best way to get their recipe is just to
go to Newstalk ZEDB dot co, dot inz, forward slash
Jack

Speaker 1 (05:16):
For more From Saturday Morning with Jack Tame, Listen live
to News Talks dB from nine am Saturday, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio