Preparation

• 1
  1. Remove the skin from the chicken, to reduce the fat content, and score each piece with a sharp knife 3 times diagonally. Place the chicken in a large bowl.
• 2
  2. Peel the shallots and cut in half if very small
• 3
  I used the longer slightly larger type and chopped them into 3 thick pieces. Deseed the peppers and chop into fair sized pieces. Add both to the chicken.
• 4
  3. In another bowl, combine the ketchup, mustard, smoked paprika, Worcestershire sauce and sugar. Peel and crush the cloves of garlic, add and stir well together. Season with just a little salt and a grinding of pepper. Pour the sauce over the chicken and vegetables and mix well, making sure that you coat everything with the sauce, working it into the slits in the chicken. Cover the bowl and leave in the fridge for an hour or two to marinade.
• 5
  4. When you are ready to cook, preheat the oven to 220 degrees, 200 degrees fan oven. Wash the potatoes and chop them, unpeeled, into chunks. If you use small potatoes just cut them in half, or leave tiny ones whole. Cook them in boiling water for about 5 minutes, then drain.
• 6
  5. In a roasting tin, heat the sunflower oil then add the potatoes, tossing briefly to coat them in the hot oil. Then tip them into a shallow ovenproof dish, add the chicken, vegetables and sauce and mix together well. [You can cook it in the roasting tin of course, but I like to take it to the table in its dish straight from the oven, still bubbling.] Bake for about 45 minutes, stirring once or twice as it cooks, until the chicken and potatoes are cooked right through and it looks sticky and well browned.
• 7
  You can vary the ingredients of your barbecue sauce
• 8
  try using honey or maple syrup instead of sugar, soy sauce in the place of the Worcestershire sauce, and perhaps some sweet chilli sauce, tabasco or chopped red chilli to add heat to the dish.