Crispy Tarragon Chicken with Creamy Sweetcorn

and mashed potato because this is cosy comfort food

Life is about balance. Sometimes I crave salads, and soups and I want to eat a little lighter in the evening and sometimes I want pure comfort. I don’t know about you but I find this is often dictated by the weather. There’s a crisp Autumn chill in the air, the nights are closing in and we are well into cosy season. And that’s where this recipe comes in.

I’ve shared my mums famous (to me) chicken pie recipe before on here. If you’re new here, you may have missed it but you can find it here. It’s one of my favourite things in the world and this recipe is loosely based on that. This is very low effort but gives maximum rewards and that’s what I’m all about when it comes to a weeknight.

This is a dish of three parts. Crispy chicken - you all know by now skin on, bone in chicken thighs are my go-to for easy, low effort chicken. A drizzle of olive oil, flakey sea salt on the skin and whack them in oven for 45-50 minutes and you just can’t go wrong. Then there’s creamy mashed potato which you can get on with while the chicken is cooking. I’m also going to share my secret weapon for how to get perfect lump-free potatoes every time. So far, so good. But! The sweetcorn sauce is arguably the star of the show here and that’s saying something because it’s up against two of the greatest things of all time.

You’re going to roughly chop an onion and place it underneath the chicken thighs so as the chicken roasts, the onion will get meltingly soft in the roasting juices. And then this whole thing is going to form the basis for the sauce which comes together in about 3 minutes when you take the chicken out of the oven. Oh goodness it’s so good. I went a little heavy on the cream in the video I made for this, as it was one of those days. No regrets obviously. But you can add as little or as much as you like. Sometimes I add more of a splash and let the chicken roasting juices do more of the heavy lifting and sometimes I want more creaminess. Sometimes I use cream, sometimes creme fraiche. The choice is yours and I will explain all down below.

So without further ado, let’s get into it.