Jamie Oliver's Chicken in Milk

Prior to watching the video of Jamie Oliver and the Italian chef making this dish together, I had a lot of the same questions about the details too. Watch the video and all of your concerns and questions, i.e. ‘why toss the butter?’ will be answered. I followed the info in the video and this has been the most intensely flavorful Chicken recipe I’ve ever eaten. Incredibly different from the printed recipe. Btw, the butter becomes burnt at the bottom and needs to be tossed a couple of times to get the yummy browned skin in order to roast in the oven with all those delicious flavors. Garlic skins keep the garlic mild and sweet, the ‘curds’ become a wonderful ricotta-like cheese. This is truly deliciously genius.

Made this for dinner tonight. It was the easiest recipe I've ever done with chicken and it turned out perfect! My sage hasn't come in fully this season, so I augmented what my garden produced with thyme and marjoram with two top snips of savory. I served the chicken with mashed potatoes and broccoli; whisked the sauce and poured it over the mashed potatoes to serve a perfect side. The chicken was moist, tender and perfect. I will be repeating this recipe1. Thanks, Jaimie!

Sauce was fragrant and, yes, strangely appealing. Chicken itself was a bit dry and not very flavorful. Going back to Richard Olney's chicken (also curd-ish), and jamie's chicken with basil and tomatoes. But I love this site and all the inspiration!

I'm presently starting this good looking recipe, and will come back with my guests comments later! but I just wanted to give my French part: garlic baked with skins on is a very French treat,called "ail en chemise", literally garlic with its shirt on, and offers the best way to taste garlic, it is said that cooked this way it does not give the regular after taste and smelly breath..

Garlic, with the skins on? Can you eat those or should you discard? Do the skins lend any unique flavor? So curious!

Has anyone tried this with coconut milk?

I usually use olive oil and have changed the recipe by using a pint of heavy cream instead of milk and leaving out the lemon (because the person who eats dinner with me is not a big fan of anything lemon). This sauce doesn't split into curds so if that's the draw for you, forget doing it. BUT it does makes a delicious cream sauce. You can leave out all seasoning, except salt and pepper (which is what I usually do), and it's plain and rich and wonderful, especially served over basmati rice (I use Meera Sodha's recipe from Made in India, which heats up well in the microwave). Whenever I can find a D'Artagnan Organic Chicken that is only 3-½ pounds, I always snag it. It is perfect here. Also, I start with a VERY dry chicken and cook it in hot olive oil. Then when I take it out of the pan to get rid of the oil, I salt and pepper the chicken all over before I put it back in the pan, add the cream, cover the pot, and plop the whole thing in the oven. You can probably add whatever seasonings you feel like - the cinnamon, perhaps curry powder, cardamom, etc. I imagine the sky's the limit. Anyway, if this appeals to you at all, I recommend you give this a go.

I recall my Scottish mom or gran poaching fish in milk. Black Cod. Kippers. Sole. I've never tried chicken...but sounds good. Fish is delish done this way. Not fussy and very simple.

Lovely...lots of extras for other dishes.

After browning I finished it in the slow cooker. It was good, but the flavor was quite mild. Not sure what the big deal is.

Ha! The first time I made this dish I used 2% milk and had a much nicer
"sauce". Last evening I used whole milk and had less sauce as well as the curds sticking to the sage. 2% milk is the key for me.

I am so flabbergasted that anyone would WANT to eat curds instead of the silky sauce after removing the fat layer and blending the sauce. ForGET this Oliver guy and look up the brilliant Paula Wolfert's version.

I wouldn't worry about sage, lemon zest peel or garlic adhering to the curds. They are easily enough separated from them. I do remember the second time I made this, that I added some hot water (just a little) to move things around in the pot and to add to the sauce after I spooned off some of the fat. This inspiration came from Marcella Hazan's recipe for Pork Loin Braised in Milk. It too had curds that were thinned out a bit with warm water, which was then spooned over the sliced meat before being brought to the table. If you're worried about overcooking your chicken, start to take its internal temperature about one-hour to make sure it is approximately 165-degrees in the breasts. The thighs and drumsticks will take a little longer to reach that temperature--remove the white meat and keep cover and warm while the rest finishes. Don't worry about the size of the curds--they will still remain curds--just smaller.

Made this tonight and while the chicken was good, it wasn't fantastic, and I don't think I'll make it again. As a previous commenter noted, the curds were stuck to the sage, garlic and lemon zest - so it was impossible to spoon the juice and curds over the chicken as instructed. I thought about straining the sauce, but then would have lost the curds. So I just served it as it was on the side, but it was a bit of a mess. Also, an hour and a half cooking time was too much for the chicken, even though mine was 4 1/2 pounds.

Would buttermilk work for this recipe?

I could only find 6 lb chicken. double everything????

Coconut milk might work. Sorta sounds good. May try it myself.

Made the dish for dinner and YUMMMMMMM! Wondering if you could use thai coconut milk?

Delicious. Moist and flavorful. Was really excited about the "gravy." The curds ended up sticking to the sage and the garlic, so was hard to get a lot of that creamyness that everyone was raving about. Would absolutely make it again though. So easy.

This was a winner in our house. I spatchcocked the chicken for easier browning. I simply put a pot lid on top for weigh distribution and it formed a nice even brown skin. I also used a 3 1/2 quart braising Le Creuset dish which was the perfect size for the bird. Next time I may leave the lid on until the end as we would have enjoyed more liquid.

My tip: The next day de-bone the left over chicken. Cut up and add celery, onion, mayo, salt and pepper. Best ever chicken salad sandwich.

On repurposing the leftover butter after frying the chicken: I let mine cool down and freeze it to be used when sauteeing chopped veggies for any chicken-stock based homemade soup.

1.5 hours of cooking time was too long--sauce was wonderful but chicken was overcooked.

I think not. Without bones, your chicken is going to be cooked much faster and you'd have to deconstruct the recipe to accommodate the fact that the breasts will be done first, then the thighs. You also have the problem of the milk cooking down into curds, which takes times because all the water from the milk needs to evaporate. You'll also be left with less than the flavor of the original as bones deliver flavor. I'm not a fan of boneless, skinless chicken of any type. It may be convenient, but we've become a nation of food weenies, demanding our meat be as manicured as possible. I want bones and I want skin and I want fat because in the end, it all equals flavor.

Has anyone tried this with (bone/skin)less chicken thighs? I know I'd lose some of the flavour that a whole chicken gives, but would the heart of the recipe still work?

Wouldn't make it again. Not sure what all the fuss is! not much flavour to the chicken at all after all that.
Better to just roast it, after rubbing butter over the bird, and add some lemon juice, olive oil and rosemary and such. The milk seemed to drown out the flavour of the chicken itself.

I loved this. Going to make it for a lunch with friends along with a salad and bread.

I would NEVER have tried this recipe if I hadn't read reviews. Chicken and milk? Seriously? Actually, yes. Seriously. This recipe is perfect. It is super easy to make. I did not alter ingredients at all.

I did not tell my 13 yr old son and husband what was in this recipe, because I knew they would not want to try it. The ingredients sound so weird and unworkable. The aroma in the house, though, was sublime and pulled them in through the cooking time. I took the chicken out of the oven and my son sneaked a piece. He put it in his mouth and said, "Hmm?? Cinnamon?" I thought when I answered in the affirmative that the jig was up, but his next utterance was, "YUM!"

This recipe of disparate ingredients is so good. The chicken is outrageously juicy. The flavors blend together to create a crazy burst of flavor.

This will be my go-to chicken recipe from now on. Crazy good. Crazy easy.

I have been intrigued by this recipe for a while. Finally made it today and all I can say is sumptuous, fall off the bone wonderful. I was concerned about browning the chicken ( I too, have an itty bitty kitchen). I used a carving fork to turn the chicken while browning--It was perfect. I did not have cinnamon stick; added a tiny bit of ground cinnamon...and a few cracked green cardamom pods. My only quandary is how to get more gravy. Cooked with lid fully on, the gravy, with the garlic, wilted sage and curds...one could hardly tell they were curds) was sooo yum! This is very much a "rustic hunter" type of meal. I used the discarded butter to roast broccoli and yukon gold wedges. I'd like to use the lemons sliced and stuffed inside the chicken next time... happy tummy.

Not a fan. Browning a whole chicken was challenging and messy in my apartment sized stove. Split sauce was oily, noway to retain the flavour without all the chicken grease. Also sauce didnt keep well, after a night in the fridge it wasnt very appetizing. With all the great and easy chicken recipes out there this one wasn't worth the trouble.

Yum! Came out beautifully. Left the lid partially on; 1.5 hours was great. Basted a few times. Loved the split sauce! Next time would season the chicken with even more salt and pepper before browning. Served over toasted split baguette chunks with glazed carrots and added a squeeze of fresh lemon juice just before eating.

Does anyone know of a substitute I could use for the Sage? Thanks so much.

Oliver also uses this dampened crumpled wax paper technique for a stupendous baked Creamy Butternut Squash recipe from COOK WITH JAMIE (a truly great cookbook). He tosses slices of peeled and sliced squash with smashed coriander seeds, crumbled dry red chilies, picked fresh thyme leaves, salt, pepper and olive oil together and bakes them under this crumpled wax paper for about 20 minutes. He then combines light cream, nutmeg, a wineglass of Chardonnay and 2 handfuls of Parmesan cheese and pours it over the softened squash and bakes that for an addition 10 minutes (without the was paper). One of the most delicious of his many fine recipes.

I also repurpose the butter by sauteing spinach in it as a perfect accompaniment to the chicken. Got the idea from Jamie on his show.

I love this recipe and have been making it since I saw Jamie cook it on his Naked Chef show more than a decade ago. In the show, he took a slightly crumpled, wet piece of wax paper and put it over the chicken while it roasted, instead of the pot's lid.

I repurposed the butter, using it for the vegetable that I served with the chicken that night, and saved the rest for another meal. I strained it through a fine-mesh sieve. The butter is good as long as it hasn't burned.

Do you have to throw away the butter after you brown the chicken?

This does keep the meat moist and tender, especially if you keep the lid on. I left the butter and juices in the bottom of the pan after browning; they just add to the sauce very nicely.

This recipe was delicious & easy and worked well. I would make it again.

After reading comments here, I took the following steps to make the sauce smooth: (1) I left about two tablespoons of butter in the pan when I added the milk; (2) I peeled the garlic cloves before cooking; (3) at the end, I removed the herbs, lemon peel, and cinnamon stick, and pureed the sauce, including the garlic cloves.

I didn't care for the flavors for this and won't make again.

Second try....just ok. Easy recipe. Wonder if that is why everyone thinks it is so good. Have made Hazan's pork with milk and thought excellent. Definitely, for me, this is not a company meal.

greg, here are my thoughts:1) the most important thought: If you had never before seen a tomato, and someone gave you a taste of tomato juices, you might think they were divine. But you might REALLY smile when they gave you a taste of a ripe tomato. My intention with this whole posting is to urge the 52 cooks to try a ripe tomato.

As to Marcella, what a missed opportunity for deliciousness. She would have loved the French version.
I saw a Penelope demo for the dish and still have the typewritten handout for it! She's neat. yum. But Paula's recipe is the Queen of deliciousness on this one. Leave it to the French!

My 'speed'/ simplifying things comment was specifically referring to jamie's lack of the further time required to do the bed of vegetables. Aside from this recipe,I
have no opinion about jamie. I don't know his work. But i do believe that being a TV or media star means that you are surrounded by minions (so often inexperienced because they are the cheapest to hire) who end up doing a great deal of the gopher stuff you used to do yourself. Including creating or transcribing recipes, writing author's notes, etc etc. etc.

So if you want to eat curds and i want to eat cream, there we are. I have def tried the curds, and find them disgusting. So now, don't knock the cream 'til you've tried it!

Ok. One more try tonight. Fingers crossed that this time I will find it as amazing as all of you.

I made this recipe yesterday for my friends and husband. They loved it! Also they made some brilliant comments such as "legendary", "might be the best chicken I have ever had" and "you absolutely know how to cook"; which made me really proud.

This is a genius recipe for sure, and also my new favourite way of cooking chicken.

I really must take exception to your rant against Jamie Oliver. The recipe for pork braised in milk appears in a number of cookbooks. I first encountered it in Marcella Hazan's brilliant THE CLASSIC ITALIAN COOKBOOK, published by Knopf in 1976. Hazan recipe, which is the simplest (butter, olive oil, pork loin, salt, pepper and milk) clearly does not make a smooth sauce. After skimming the fat off the curds, she adds a few tablespoons of hot water and whisks the sauce, which is not smooth. I've been making that recipe since the book was first published. Penelope Casas, in her excellent THE FOODS & WINES OF SPAIN (published also by Knopf in 1979) also has a recipe for Pork Roast Simmered in Milk. She puts the sauce in a blender to smooth, and then strains off the fat. I've never made it or Wolfert's version, which first appeared in 1983, but here's my point. Your sense of "disGUSTing" is wonderful to someone else. Your condescension towards Jamie Oliver is unfair. Oliver published the recipe in a book fairly early in his career. I think it is admirable that he adapted a new recipe from what is surely a classic. I think that's creative and the new dish works. Clearly many here are quite taken with it. Oliver recipe hardly classifies as "short-cutted for speed." The dish takes about 12 minutes for browning of the chicken, plus an hour and a half of simmering. That's roughly the same time it takes to make Hazan's version. I like both very much and both versions are crowd pleasers. The curds/sauce are what gives the meat something special. Your focus may be on the meat; Oliver's on the curds. Tomato tomahto!

I know that this is not a politically correct response, but damn the torpedoes...I have to get this off my chest. I am horrified at the 'author's statement that :
"plus the curds are the best part, and the split sauce is actually the point. "
Is the author(Jamie Oliver? or his team of inexperienced ?assistants?) just simply stupid? or perhaps quoted incorrectly? or maybe they just have an aberrant sense of good taste? This method of cooking a meat in milk- has been made by me from my cookbooks, for ~30 years- from France/Paula Wolfert and Italy and Spain (at least.) It is always possible that I have been mis-educated, but the separated curds and whey are NOT the point of the dish; they are disGUSTing and i would never serve them in that form. I follow Paula's direction by setting aside the braised meat, discarding the layer of liquid fat (if there is one), and cooking down the curds and whey, and blending them to a smooth puree that is then gently heated.What you end up with is a rich non-cream creamy flavorful sauce (thick enough to coat the back of a spoon.) Paula's is made w/ thyme and bay leaves, not cinnamon and sage, (and I usually double the milk and add extra seasoning. If it lacks depth, I add some Tamari.)
When serving leftovers, I re-blend the sauce because it often separates. It is one of our fav dishes.And the sauce is my FAV part! (she said, spoon in hand.) Any leftover sauce freezes well and can be added to the next batch.
It seems clear to me that Jamie's version, with chicken, is short-cutted for speed in today's over-worked world. Paula's roast sits on a bed of sauteed veggies (which also enrich the sauce.) I hope some of you will seek it out; recipes using pork loin rarely give you succulent moist meat like this!
** see Paula Wolfert, The Cooking of SW France, pg 246, "Pork Cooked in Milk"

There have been so many good ideas about ways to adapt this recipe here. I was speaking with my brother this morning and he suggested using curry powder to take the dish in an entirely new direction. Sounds very appealing.

I also made this last night and it was a big success. For some reason, I had run out of cinnamon sticks, and used 1/4 teaspoon of ground instead. The dish didn't produce as much curds as Marcella Hazan's pork loin in milk does, but I suspect it has more to do with the fact that I left the cover off the top of the pot. After reading other comments here, my revisions would include covering the dish with only a partial amount exposed to the dry oven heat. I used peeled garlic cloves and they were fine. In the end, there was plenty of sauce in this gorgeous and subtle recipe. I might even try to do this on top of the stove, as Hazan did in her pork version. Hers has only butter/oil, salt and pepper and whole milk. I liked the idea of pouring the fat out of the pot before assembling all the ingredients together. I recycled some of the butter for the vegetable that accompanied the chicken. Today's lunch will be the leftovers. One more thing--Jamie Oliver is a genius in my opinion. He's always putting together interesting ingredients. He's not out on a limb as so many chefs are. His cookbooks are inspiring to me because he is often original but always with the idea of flavorful common sense. For example, look at the recipes in JAMIE AT HOME, COOK WITH JAMIE. Both books are compulsively readable and I've used them over and over again over the years.

I made this today. We INHALED the chicken. Here are the notes I have added to the recipe for next time. Be sure to use a large pot, turning over the whole chicken takes some maneuvering space. Double the other ingredients. Peel the garlic. Attempt to baste. Take out of the oven promptly at 1 1/2 mark or just a bit before. Carefully peel the skin with bits of meat for quality assurance. Keep in rotation!

I made this for dinner tonight with chicken breasts instead. Tasted great, but I would add more sage for flavor and a little flour to the sauce to thicken it up.

Made this with cocoanut cream and cocoanut water - best dish ever! Side of couscous and steamed spinach ~ So good:)

Usually I have great success with Food52 recipes, however, this was an exception. After reading the reviews, I was looking forward to the sauce. Not sure if I did something wrong, but the sauce, the unappealing look aside, was fairly tasteless. The chicken tho was very good.

I have tried similar recipes before and admit I am turned off by the separated milk however, I decided to try this one. I am really glad that I did; it was delicious. Perhaps because we are at a higher altitude which has a lower boiling point (above 4,000 feet), there was significant reduction in the sauce resulting a creamy texture.....the separation in the milk was not as off-putting. The real star of this dish though is the chicken. It is succulent, moist, and wonderfully flavored with subtle notes of cinnamon, sage, and nutty garlic. The ease of making this just takes it over the top.....minimum effort for maximum result! I agree with Nancy that I would peel the garlic before adding so that it us easier to enjoy with the meal. This is a new favorite.

I was a bit underwhelmed. I followed the recipe exactly. The sauce was watery and not as pungent as I had hope for. I would peel the garlic and thicken the sauce with a bit of flour right after the browning process. After discarding the butter that is now pretty darn brown, add a bit of new butter and flour to make a roux and then add the milk, cinnamon and spices.

Not sure what all the fuss is about. The chicken was fine, but the sauce (what little there was) was an unpalatable mush of curds at the bottom of the pot. Found this to be very disappointing.

My chicken is almost 6 lbs. Should I just double the sauce ingredients? And, if so, how should I adjust the cooking time?

This was excellent. The few tweaks I made was that I took the skins off of the garlic, and I did not have a lemon so I used orange peel and some bottled lemon juice, I also used some (freshly) dried sage and fresh thyme. It was a really excellent recipe, next time I might reduce the cooking time a little, mine was almost dry.

I was skeptical, but gave it a try and thought this chicken was fantastic and I look forward to making it for company! I found the recipe very easy and well written. I did need to make a few modifications based on ingredients I had, but that makes me appreciate the flexibility of the recipe. I reduced the amount of butter by half (my chicken was only 3 lbs). I omitted the cinnamon (not my favorite aromatic with chicken), might try fennel next time, though. I also used a small bunch of parsley, instead of sage. Oh, and I didn't have milk, but had powdered milk in my baking pantry, so I reconstituted that. I only use powdered milk in my baking as a dry ingredient, glad the first time I substituted for regular milk it worked out great! Overall, I thought this recipe was really delicious. The skin on the chicken was brown & crispy, the meat was very tender and flavorful and the little curds were truly divine in the sauce. I have some other solid roast chicken recipes in my repertoire, but this one is a keeper and moving to the front of my rotation!

Was ok. Nothing to write home about. Didn't like the look of the curds. Didn't use much of the sauce at all.

I just turned my 3 1/2 pounder over with a big metal spatula. Easy.

Non-fat milk is precisely why you didn't get the "little curds" you were looking for. The recipe calls for whole milk. I use 1% milk for most things, but when a recipe these days calls for the use of whole milk, pay close attention because it will affect the finished dish. Sometimes, using whole milk in this non-fat era of ours, does have its benefits.

My sauce did not have the little curds that I was looking forward to. Any suggestions as to why? I used non-fat milk, could that be the reason?

I just made this for dinner. It was quite honestly the best chicken I have had in a long time. The family loved it! I would definitely agree this is a "Genius" recipe.

This is definitely inspired by the Marcella Hazan Recipe in her Classic Italian Cooking. I too have been making this wonderful dish for years. I hadn't thought of it beyond pork, but Jamie Oliver is such a creative cook/chef. A couple of things. Which of his books is this from? I wonder if the lemon zest strips are necessary, as it is not in Marcella's original recipe. WHOLE MILK is essential to making those lovely caramel-colored curds. Marcella skimmed the fat off of the surface of the sauce, then thinned it with a couple of tablespoons of boiling water, or in this case perhaps chicken stock or broth. Can't wait to try this.

So good! The sauce is fantastic. Such a lovely change of pace from roasted chicken -- and much more foolproof since you can just set the timer and not worry about dry chicken.

I made this last night and I found that there was a little too much lemon - I used 2 medium sized lemons for the zest. The sauce by about 3/4 cooked was on the bitter side. I added about 250mL cream I had leftover to mellow out the bitterness which worked well. Because it was most of the way through the cooking period, it didn't affect the curds forming in the split sauce, but the mellowing fixed the bitterness from the lemon and improved the texture of the split sauce I found. The chicken was perfectly moist and delicious and I'll definitely make this again - but I'll keep in mind the tweaks I used this time and see if they're needed next time too.

extremely easy and delicious. As I didn't have the spices on hand, I substituted nutmeg for the cinnamon and majoran for sage. As we prefer more garlic, increased cloves to 12. Delicious - and will certainly repeat.

Made this last night & we loved it! However, I wish there was more sauce. Would it be ok to double the ingredients? I used a 5 quart Le Cruset Dutch oven & left lid ajar as suggested. There was just a little sauce on the bottom of the pan. Was the pot too large? Love your "Genius" recipes! I have preordered the book!

can you easily substitute Cornish Game Hens for the chicken?

Delicious but will make it with only dark meat next time. Yes, use that leftover butter for sauteeing greens...don't throw it away!!!

I made probably a newbie cook error. I used a cut-up, skinned chicken (one hour). Didn't work. Tasted ok but not great. Thought I would post to warn others.

So good! Just had this for lunch, super easy to make. I did not have a lemon and substituted an orange and a bit of lemon juice. One of the best chicken dishes I have ever tasted!

I have a correction to make: the pork loin braised in milk recipe I mentioned belongs to Marcella Hazan in the "Classic Italian Cook Book".
And yes, it has to be whole milk, this will produce clusters of delicious, nut brown sauce.

I am also wondering like Beverly what %fat milk is suggested or if it matters (1%, 2%, whole?)

AMAZING!!! I was immediately drawn to this recipe as it is so like a pork loin braised in milk I have been making forever. I was not disappointed. The sauce flavors are fantastic. Next time I would skin the cloves as I used an immersion blender on the sauce at the end and had to (messily) pop the garlic out of the skins. I didn't have a cinnamon stick, so subbed 1/2 t. ground cinnamon. Also, final confession, I used a 6 lb. bird. It was completely cooked in 1.5 hours, but I should have increased the braising ingredients accordingly. Not enough scrumptious sauce! I can't wait to make this again.

Do you use whole milk or 1 or 2%?

What temperature should the oven be? 180 degrees C? (Approx. 360 F)

I've never commented on a recipe before, but this one, holy shit, this one needs to be talked about. This chicken is AMAZING. So so so good! The sauce is really ugly, but so unbelievably delicious. I want to eat it every day :) This is my new go-to chicken recipe. YUUUMMMMMM!

Browning a whole chicken is so unwieldy for a klutz like me. I'm thinking this is a good time to spatchcock the bird first.

How long does it take, approximately, for the first step - where we fry the chicken in the butter?

How long do you think it would take in a pressure cooker?

Please clarify - on web page https://food52.com/blog/12101-jamie-oliver-s-chicken-in-milk it lists 6 cloves of garlic. In the list of ingredients on this web page it lists 10 cloves of garlic.

The great Julia Child has a similar version but with pork loin, and it is braised on the stove top instead. Also fantastic.

Would this recipe work for pheasant?? My husband brought home a dozen and I'm looking for good recipes!!

Cooking Chicken in Yogurt with turmeric and tomatoes; add cinnamon, cloves , cardamon whole peppercorns and green chillies as necessary. Something with chicken and dairy - great combo

I've made this chicken several times, my favorite go to whole chicken recipe, try it!!!

Is a 3.5 quart pot big enough?

Why toss out the butter? What a loss!

Could this be browned then finished in a slow cooker?

I have a Turkey Crown in the fridge. I wonder how that would work.

Can non-dairy milk be subbed for those who are dairy averse? I plan to make it as printed for myself,,,YUM...but some of my family can't do lactose. Thanks.

Yum. Question. Why leave the garlic unpeeled. I have a bag of garlic but it is peeled already (which I keep in freezer). Thanks.