Chicken, sausage and potato tray roast
This chicken, sausage, and potato tray roast with apricot, herbs & bay pretty much cooks itself and is so delicious you will immediately put it on your weeknight supper rotation. The flavour-packed roasting liquid of chicken stock, sherry, thyme, mustard, garlic, and apricot jam makes the most delicious pan gravy you might want to make for guests too. Have bread on standby to mop it all up.
French preserve manufacturer Bonne Maman asked me to produce a savoury recipe showcasing one of their products. I chose their apricot preserve and I’m going to show you what I did with it. I love apricot with chicken and grew up with a recipe that famously involved apricot juice and brown onion soup so I adapted one of my favourite tray roast chicken recipes to include apricot jam. Marmalade would work equally well here and what I have used in the past with a similar recipe (from my first cookbook).
What I used to make this chicken, sausage and potato tray roast:
- I have used pork sausages here but Italian sausages (salsiccia) with fennel would be very delicious too. They tend to be bigger so use only 4 if you do.
- Bay and thyme give this salty-sweet roast chicken a herbaceous hit, and a sprinkle of chopped parsley finishes it off.
- New potatoes are perfect in this recipe. Cut them in half if they are a little big.
- Garlic & Dijon mustard is always a good idea.
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Bonne Maman® is exclusively available in South Africa at Woolworths
Recipe – serves 4
Roast chicken, sausage and potato tray roast recipe
Ingredients
- 8 pieces of free-range chicken bone-in and skin on
- 8 pork sausages or 4 large Italian sausages
- 500 gms new potatoes
- 3 – 4 bay leaves
- A few sprigs of thyme
- 400 ml stock chicken stock
- ½ cup Medium Cream Sherry
- 2 large garlic cloves crushed
- 4 Tbsp Bonne Maman apricot preserve
- 1 tsp Dijon mustard
- drizzle of olive oil
- salt and pepper
- 1 Tbs chopped parsley for garnish
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180C/350 F
- Cut the potatoes in half if they are big and arrange them with the chicken pieces and sausages in a large deep-sided roasting pan. Tuck the bay leaves and thyme sprigs under and around the chicken.
- Mix the stock, sherry, garlic, mustard and Bonne Maman apricot preserve in a jug and pour over the chicken & sausages. Drizzle a little olive oil on the bits of sausage and chicken that are sticking out of the sauce and season with salt and pepper.
- Roast uncovered for an hour, or until cooked through and golden. Arrange om a serving platter.
Notes
Storage and Reheating Instructions
Storage- Allow the tray roast to cool completely before storing.
- Transfer leftovers to an airtight container and refrigerate for up to 3 days.
- For longer storage, freeze portions (without the potatoes, which can change texture) for up to 2 months. Defrost overnight in the fridge before reheating.
- Reheat in a 180°C (fan) oven for 15–20 minutes until hot through. Add a splash of chicken stock or water if the sauce has thickened.
- You can also reheat individual portions in the microwave on medium power for 2–3 minutes, stirring halfway through.
*This post is proudly sponsored by Bonne Maman
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This was delicious and prepares in about ten minutes. I added a tin of lightly drained tinned apricot halves around halfway through the cooking and omitted the wine (used the chicken stock as per recipe with an added splash of store-bought apple juice}. The remainder of the ingredients were all as per recipe. The resulting “sauce” after baking was extremely runny and I thought it rather thin on flavour. The amount of sauce was just far too much. It required much reducing in a separate pan {the chicken pieces of course had an extensive rest} and required a slurry of 2 heaped teaspoons of plain flour the sauce before it thickened enough to become a pan gravy. The gravy, for some it perhaps leaned more towards the ‘sweet’ rather than ‘meaty’ side (?the result of substituting the wine even a little apple juice and adding the apricot halves}, proved to be delicious poured over the meats, potatoes, but none more so when generously spooned over a mix of steamed julienned vegetables strips (ex-Woolies). Will most assuredly become a regular and favourite evening meal.
Hi Patrick, I’m glad you liked the recipe in the end but you changed it so much. The additional apple juice plus the liquid that would have resulted from the apricots could have thrown the balance out. The sherry is such a game changer along with the stock, garlic, herbs and Dijon. As I mentioned, it’s more of a pan jus and not a gravy. I made it recently and loved it so much (again). I am considering trying an option with a neutral thickener, such as arrowroot, as I think people will prefer a thicker gravy.