Kotopoulo Lemonato Recipe (Greek Lemon Roast Chicken and Potatoes)

This is the tray of food most associated with a Greek Sunday lunch: bone-in chicken and potato wedges roasted together in the same tray, both bathed in a marinade of lemon, garlic, oregano and olive oil, so that by the end the potatoes have taken on the flavour of the chicken and the citrus in equal measure.

The technique that separates a good kotopoulo lemonato from an average one is patience with the potatoes: they want a genuine head start in the oven, because chicken cooks through faster than potatoes soften, and a shared roasting tray otherwise leaves you with perfectly done chicken sitting on top of undercooked potatoes.

It is a genuinely simple, mostly hands-off dish once the marinating is done, and it rewards the same lemon and oregano combination that appears throughout Greek roasting, from souvlaki to the potatoes served on their own.

Key preparation steps

1. Marinate bone-in chicken and potato wedges together in lemon, garlic and oregano.
2. Give the potatoes a head start in a hot oven before the chicken goes in.
3. Roast together, basting occasionally, until both are deeply golden.
4. Add a splash of hot water partway through if the tray looks dry.

Why the potatoes need a head start

Chicken pieces, particularly thighs and drumsticks, cook through in around 45 minutes at a good roasting heat, while potato wedges genuinely need closer to an hour to turn properly soft inside and golden outside. Putting both into the oven at the same time and for the same duration leaves you choosing between overdone chicken or undercooked potatoes.

Give the potatoes roughly twenty minutes alone in a hot oven, tossed in the marinade, before nestling the chicken pieces among them for the remainder of the cooking time. This single adjustment is what makes the whole tray finish together properly.

The marinade

Lemon juice, a generous amount of it, olive oil, crushed garlic, dried oregano and a little hot water or stock poured into the base of the tray, which does double duty as a marinade and as the braising liquid that keeps the potatoes from drying out over the long roast.

Marinate for at least an hour if you have the time, though this dish is forgiving enough that even a marinade added just before roasting still gives a good result, since the lemony liquid keeps working throughout the whole cooking time.

Keeping the tray from drying out

Check the tray around the halfway point and add a splash more hot water or stock if the liquid has mostly evaporated, since a dry tray for the final stretch risks the potatoes catching before they are properly cooked through. You want a thin, lemony liquid still visible in the base of the tray right up until near the end.

In the final fifteen minutes, if the chicken skin is not yet as deeply golden as you want, turn the oven up or move the tray higher, since by this point both elements should be nearly done and it is really just colour you are chasing.

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