I am so busy trying out new recipes and ingredients that it has become a rarity to cook a good old-fashioned roast chicken. But it is a plate of food that is hard to beat.

This recipe differs only slightly from a classic roast chicken. It is inspired by a Greek friend who cooks golden, roasted chicken bits with lots of juicy black olives, freshly squeezed lemon juice, garlic, thyme and marjoram.

It makes a beautiful dish for the summer, filling the kitchen with the scent of herbs and citrus, evoking long, lazy lunches in the sun. If you can get hold of marjoram, so much the better; it is a beautiful herb to cook with and well worth growing in a window box since many shops tend not to stock it.

I am trying to cut down on meat. I eat much less day-to-day and find that saving it for a treat on some nights and at the weekend makes it all the more special and mouth-watering.

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Background

• How do you like your meat?

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• How to cook the perfect steak

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Mass-reared chicken is so cheap and bland that it has lost its place as the highlight of the week and we take it too much for granted.

Free-range meat, on the other hand, is slow-reared, full of flavour and goodness. It isn't cheap, and nor should it be. With free-range you know that the animals have been treated well and, as a result, you are getting a better-quality product. It is healthier since it has a lower fat content and is said to have more vitamins and minerals.

Free-range meat also makes an infinitely superior stock to the flesh of bloated birds that have never seen daylight. Try this simple, summery version and savour the meat as the treat that it is.

INGREDIENTS

Cooking time: 60min, plus 10min resting time; preparation time: about 15min; serves 5-6

100g good quality Kalamata black olives, pitted (about 20)
1 shallot
1 large clove garlic
2 tbsp capers, rinsed
A handful of thyme sprigs (if it is old you need to strip the leaves, otherwise the young, soft stalks can be whizzed with everything else)
A small handful of marjoram (or oregano; fresh if possible)
6 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp Dijon mustard
Zest and juice of half a lemon
Freshly ground pepper
1 free-range chicken, about 2kg
1 bunch of spring onions (about a dozen)

METHOD

Pre-heat the oven to 220C/425F/gas 7. Finely chop the olives, shallot, garlic, capers, thyme and marjoram (or whiz in a food processor), and mix in the olive oil, mustard, lemon and pepper. Check for seasoning.

Pull the chicken legs slightly apart from the body without tearing the skin. This will help them to cook. Using your fingers, separate the skin of the breast and legs from the chicken. You can watch me do this at timesonline.co.uk/realfood (see box, right). Make an incision and with a wooden spoon, push the olive paste well under the skin of the breasts and legs and smear any left over on the outside.

Top and tail the spring onions and lay them on the bottom of a roasting tray, drizzling them with a little olive oil, salt and pepper.

Place the bird on top and roast for ten minutes before turning the oven down to 180C. Roast for another 35 to 40 minutes and then leave to rest for ten minutes in a warm place. This will allow the meat to relax so it will be beautifully tender and juicy when you carve.

If it is a hot day, you can leave the chicken to rest for longer and eat it at room temperature. It will be delicious torn up into a salad, although you will miss out on that crispy skin. Serve with small cubes of roast potatoes and a green salad.

PS If you don't have time to make your own olive paste, buy a ready-made tapenade in the supermarket and add the shallot, mustard, thyme and lemon: the better quality you buy, the tastier it will be. Home-made obviously will be the best of all, especially if you pit your own olives. Ready-pitted olives tend to be of inferior quality and tinny-tasting compared with the rich Kalamata olives that you can buy at the delicatessen.

Nutritionist's verdict: Amanda Ursell

The olives and olive oil in the recipe are good for heart-friendly monounsaturated fats, while chicken is naturally rich in lean (when eaten minus the skin) protein, which is important for good-quality skin. The shallots and garlic are good for sulphur- based compounds thought to help keep our arteries in shape and to fight bacterial, viral and fungal infections, thyme is packed with cancer-fighting polyphenols and antimicrobials, called carvacrol and thymol, which are capable of killing food-borne bugs. Oregano gives us a dose of farnesol, another potent antioxidant that in animal studies appears to block skin tumours.

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