Roast chicken with fennel, lemon and green olives

This dish - of brined free-range pieces nestling in sweet, mellow cooked fennel and fat green olives - is a happy burst of Mediterranean autumn sunshine. We've slightly changed our method so that the chicken pieces (bone-in breasts and marylands) will be brined by us, for succulence and ease of cooking, and then roasted by you, rather than braised by us and re-heated at home. What remains the same is the delicious saucy vegetable mess of braised fennel and onions, with fat green olives, bay and lemon zest which does double duty as both sauce and accompaniment. To cook, preheat a 200 C oven and simply stick the foil tray (minus the plastic film - of course!) in for 30 minutes, by which time, the chicken should be crisp-skinned and cooked (pierce a thigh to make sure) and the vegetables piping hot.  Please note that small is one bone-in breast and one maryland, with vegetables, and large is two of each. May be frozen. Defrost before reheating as above.

Free-range chicken, salt, brown sugar, fennel, olive oil, onion, garlic, white wine, green olives, chilli, bay leaves, lemon zest, thyme, chicken stock (bones, carrots, onion, celery, garlic, herbs), parsley, salt.

Serve with all the delicious vegetables and juices on a pile of mashed potato or soft polenta or, if going low-carb, a pile of steamed green vegies or cauliflower pureed with stock.