Cooking can be made simple when you’re following a quick and easy recipe, like this garlic chicken traybake from Rick Stein’s Simple Suppers book.

The dish is packed with crispy succulent chicken, tender vegetables and roasted potatoes in a garlic sauce.

Having prepped this dish in under 10 minutes and it taking 35 mounts to cook in the oven, this made for one of the tastiest traybakes - and dare I say I may have preferred it to Mary Berry’s chicken traybake.

Rick includes lemons in his recipe, however, I decided to skip this ingredient and instead use a little more oil.

This recipe serves six to eight people, but the ingredients can be halved to make fewer servings like what I have done.

Ingredients 

Four tablespoons olive oil

12 chicken thighs, skin on and bone in

Juice of one to two lemons

Five garlic cloves, chopped

Small bunch of thyme, leaves stripped from stalks

Three courgettes, cut into thick slices on the diagonal

Two fennel bulbs, trimmed and sliced

Eight new potatoes, scrubbed and cut into thick slices

Sea salt and black pepper

Method 

I started things off by preheating my oven to 200C Fan before getting on with the prep work.

I added a small amount of the oil to a large frying pan and placed it over medium-high heat. Working in two batches, I fried the chicken thighs for a few minutes until the skin had taken on a deep golden colour.

While the chicken was browning, I mixed the garlic, thyme, and the rest of the olive oil in a bowl. Add in the lemon juice now if using.

I then arranged the slices of courgette, fennel and potato in a large roasting tin and poured over two-thirds of the lemon and oil mixture before tossing to coat the vegetables and seasoning with salt and pepper.

For those using the full amount of ingredients, make sure not to overcrowd the roasting tin or it will not cook evenly – divide between two tins if necessary.

With the chicken ready, I arranged the thighs on top, skin-side up, poured over the remaining garlic oil mixture and seasoned the chicken with salt and pepper.

Then it was time to bake for 35 to 40 minutes - until the chicken skin was crisp and golden and the vegetables underneath were tender.

After 35 minutes I checked on the chicken and veg and they were perfectly cooked.

This traybake was absolutely delicious, and with it taking less than 45 minutes in total to whip up there isn’t a reason not to include this as one of your weekly dinners.