Chicken in milk

Even though I own most of Jamie Oliver's cookbooks, I can't say that I've ever really noticed this particular chicken dish before. But it's been buzzing on many of the food blogs I read, so I was anxious to give it a try.

The preparation itself is really simple: brown a chicken and then throw all the other ingredients (milk, garlic, sage, cinnamon, lemon) in a pot to cook away in the oven. It's that easy! Be prepared to salivate from the smells that come from the oven as it simmers away -- the combination of cinnamon and sage may sound odd, but it's absolutely divine!

Here's what the finished product looks like.

The chicken itself is so tender and moist that it comes apart easily with a knife, and the milk curdles into this delicious sauce that would be great scooped up by crusty bread, or was also lovely poured over the mashed potatoes we had it with.

I made this for a belated birthday for my mum. Here she is with the extinguished candles (not representative of her actual age!) on the rhubarb upside down cake we had to celebrate. The rhubarb came from the patch in the backyard, so it was fresh as can be.

The meal was the end of my good daughter duties, because the next day I took the leftovers of that cake to a girlfriend's house and ate it with her and her three-year-old son, who referred to the rhubarb as 'Rudolph'. He still seemed to like it, even though it didn't come with a glowing red nose.