This recipe is so easy and so adaptable. You can make it for just one person or multiply it by as many as you like. The chicken is succulent and full of flavour and the lentils are lick yout plate good. Once dish cooking at it’s best.

I love middle eastern spices, and you can buy za’atar almost anywhere now. Or if you want to make your own this is my go to.

I’ve written the recipe as a single serve but you can easily just double, triple and quadruple it to suit whoever’s at your dinner table that night. If you’re making for 4 people you could ust butterfly a whole chicken and bake that on top of the lentils.

I wanted to do it as a single serve because so many single serve dishes can be a little sad and this is the opposite. It’s tasty, nutritious and looks fancy. Because you deserve it. Haha. It also creates very little washing up. This is key if there’s no-one at home to do the dishes for you. Being home alone should be like, ‘yay alone time where I get to eat ALL THE FOOD’ not sad and full of toast. Then again my toast game is strong…

The flavour from the chicken enhances the taste of the lentils so much, they’re so tasty I honestly wanted to lick the plate. If you want some more greens in the one dish you could throw some shredded kale in with the lentils to but I kind of like how the parsley becomes the nod to salad. And sometimes salad only needs a little nod.

Serves 1. Lucky you

Ingredients

1 Chicken maryland (free range organic)

1 Tsp Za’atar spice mix

1/4 tsp paprika

a pinch of all spice

1/4 tsp cumin

1 tsp olive oil

1/3 cup brown lentils

2 Tbs finely shopped spring onione

1/3 cup flat leaf parsley, roughly chopped

2/3 cup sweet potato, skin on in 3cm chunks

1 small clove garlic

1 tsp fresh thyme leaves

2 Tbs whole almonds

1 1/4 cups chicken stock

1 Tbs feta

1 tsp lemon zest

2 tsp lemon juice

Directions

Place chicken in a small bowl and add the za’atar, paprika, allspice, cumin and aolive oil. Rub into the chicken so the spice mix is evenly coating all of it.

Place lentils in a small baking dish in an even layer, add the sweet potato, spring onion, 1/2 the parsley, the whole garlic cloves, and thyme leaves. Place the chicken maryland on top, sprinkle the lamonds around it and then pout the stock evenly around the chicken, not over so the lentils are completely submerged.

Bake in oven and cook for 35 minutes. Increase the heat to 190 degrees celsius for the next 15 minutes. If the skin hasn’t crisped up turn the grill on and cook for 5 more minutes.

To serve sprinkle the feta and remaining parlsey over the top, along with the lemonn zest. Drizzle with lemon juice and enjoy.

HH. x