- serves 4, £2.59* per serving
In my 20s, I spent a couple of lazy summers driving around southern France, drifting between hilltop villages, sun-soaked markets and crystalline lakes for an afternoon dip. By far my most vivid food memory of those trips is of the rotisserie chickens we’d buy from stalls by the roadside – slowly spinning on their spits, with deep-tan skin and buttery juices dripping down onto potatoes below. We’d take them, packed in butcher’s paper, to the lake with a fresh baguette, a tub of aïoli and a head of lettuce… the makings of the best sandwiches I can remember.
I recreate them to this day, and while my local supermarket couldn’t have less in common with a Provençal rotisserie, their chickens hold up surprisingly well. It’s something in the cooking method – the low-and-slow direct heat and the continuous basting – that renders the skin sticky and golden and the meat fall-off-the-bone tender.
Rotisserie chickens are the ultimate convenience food, particularly in peak summer when I wilt at the thought of turning on the oven. They make an easy protein in salads – maybe with leaves, avocado and a Caesar dressing, or in a crunchy Asian-style slaw. They can easily be shredded into tacos and tortilla wraps, or tossed with cold noodles and a spicy peanut dressing. Though, for me, nothing beats those baguettes.
1 rotisserie chicken, £6.75; 1 round lettuce, 79p
1 baguette, £1.20; 180g aïoli (or mayonnaise), £1.60
METHOD
Separate the leaves from the lettuce and rinse. Spin or pat dry with kitchen towel.
Pull the meat from the bones of the rotisserie chicken and shred. Also shred the skin and mix everything together. Taste and season with a little salt and pepper if it needs it.
Split open the baguette and spoon on some of the aïoli (or mayonnaise). Fill with chicken and lettuce leaves and enjoy.
