I don’t know about you, but around about now I always start to miss home a little bit. Ok, a lot. Term is well under way, the work is getting you down, week fi ve blues are setting in and all I want is a snuggle with my dog, while somebody cooks me a big, yummy dinner. Unless you have time to go back home to visit and gorge yourself on Mama’s roast, I can only help you with the dinner part (dog snuggles not included). But don’t worry, you don’t even need an oven! Just a free evening when you can take your time to cook. A big ask, I know, but it is such a satisfying feeling sitting down to something delicious that you made yourself. Also, it’s a great break from work, requiring concentration of the practical kind, rather than all the intense intellectual activity Cambridge constantly asks of us.

In other words: my brain gets tired, so I feed it chicken.

INGREDIENTS

For 2 people, you will need:

• 2 pieces of chicken: choose whichever part you like best – breast, thigh, whole leg (my favourite), the beauty of this dish is it always comes out incredibly moist!
• 1 1/2 - 2 onions, sliced
• 2-3 cloves garlic
• About 5 decent sized potatoes for the mash
• Butter and/or milk for the mash
• Spinach or other green vegetable
• Olive oil, black pepper, salt

CHEAT'S CHICKEN

Thinly slice the garlic cloves, then take your chicken pieces and score them quite deeply with a knife. Put in a bowl, douse with olive oil, then add a sprinkle of salt, the garlic, and a good amount of black pepper. Rub it all in with your fi ngers, making sure to get it into the cuts on the chicken, and leave to marinate. Put your pan on a medium heat. When hot, place your chicken pieces in the pan and pour all the olive oil and garlic in as well. Cover with a lid for 5 minutes before you add your onion slices (thick or thin as you like), which you want to slot around the chicken so they’re getting some direct heat. Cover again and cook for about another 25-30 minutes (it should sizzle gently the whole time). Do not turn the chicken! We want it to half-fry, half-steam, which will slowly cook it through, imbuing it with all the surrounding fl avours. If you want, you turn it right at the end just to make sure there’s no pink. Do squash the onions around, though, so they all cook!

THE TRIMMINGS

While the chicken’s cooking, peel and chop the potatoes into equal pieces. Place in a pan with some salt, cover with water, and put on to boil. Potatoes take about 20 minutes to cook once they are nearly boiling, but the only sure way of knowing whether they’re cooked is by breaking one in half on a plate and checking its middle. Next, wash your spinach (or veg). Spinach is the easiest thing because you can just chuck it in a colander and pour a couple of kettles of boiling water over it to wilt it: none of this faffi ng about with a saucepan. The stalls in market square do two big bunches for £1. Do the boiling water trick just when you’re ready to serve your chicken (it can sit off the heat for a couple of minutes). Your potatoes will also be cooked before your chicken is ready. Drain them, then add a big dollop of butter, some salt and black pepper and mash (with a fork if you don’t have a masher). You can add a little milk to make it smoother and mash that in. Leave in the pan and cover until ready to serve.

Eat, drink wine and enjoy!