This is one of my favorite meals. I discovered both of the recipes on one of my favorite cooking resources, Nourished Kitchen, and have never made one without the other. Fusing in a marinade for the chicken, ginger, turmeric, rosewater, lemon, and garlic create a deliciously fragrant aroma. It sends me. The lemony dressing on the tomato cucumber salad is bright and fresh. Plated together, one sauce runs into another and it’s a lovely combination. After the photo was taken, I thought I should have perhaps placed a smaller serving of salad on the plate, for the picture. Yet, this is how I eat the two, tomato salad piled high, joyfully mingling with the juicy, saucy chicken. Heavenly.

Total Active Prep Time for Both Recipes: 17 minutes

Moroccan-spiced Roast Chicken

Adapted from Moroccan-spiced Roast Chicken by Jenny McGruther of Nourished Kitchen

• Active Prep Time: 7 minutes
• Roast Time: 2 hours 15 minutes
• Total Time: 2 hours 23 minutes

Ingredients

• 1 whole chicken
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 lemon, quartered
• 1 tablespoon turmeric
• pinch of cayenne
• 1 knob of ginger, minced
• 3 cloves of garlic, minced
• ¼ teaspoon cumin
• 1 tablespoon rosewater
• 1 teaspoon salt
• ½ teaspoon pepper

Method

1. Preheat oven to 300°F.
2. Rinse chicken and pat dry. Set aside.
3. Quarter the lemon and squeeze the juice into a bowl. Reserve the rinds. Combine the rest of the marinade ingredients with the juice.
4. Stuff the chicken with the lemon rinds.
5. Using a large spoon, coat the chicken completely with the marinade. Use the back of the spoon to massage the sauce into the skin. If you use your fingers, the turmeric will turn them yellow!
6. Roast the chicken at 300°F for 2 hours. Then turn the heat up to 425°F and keep a close eye on it, until the chicken is golden-brown and the juices run clear.
7. When serving, be sure to spoon the sauce from the bottom of the pan and ladle it over the chicken!

Tomato Cucumber Salad

Adapted from Tomato & Cucumber Salad by Jenny McGruther of Nourished Kitchen

• Yield: 4–6 servings
• Prep Time: 10 minutes

Ingredients

• 1 pint of cherry tomatoes or the equivalent weight in another variety of tomato
• ½ red onion
• 1 medium cucumber
• large handful of curly parsley
• juice of 1 lemon
• ¼ cup olive oil

Method

1. Halve the cherry tomatoes (or dice, if using larger tomatoes).
2. Finely dice the red onion.
3. Finely chop the parsley.
4. Combine the vegetables and parsley in a bowl.
5. Pour the oil over the vegetables.
6. Pour the juice over the vegetables.
7. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
8. Stir to combine.
9. Serve immediately.