An old dish of Scottish origin as far as I can gather... If you're not so good with the jointing, ask one of the butchers to do this for you or simple choose your favourite joints from the counter.

Ingredients - serves 4

1 medium chicken, jointed
100g bacon pieces
2 tsp fresh thyme leaves
1kg King Edward potatoes, peeled and sliced
2 large onions, sliced
50g butter
600ml chicken stock
salt, pepper

Method

1 Preheat he oven to 150°C
Melt half of the butter in a large frying pan and brown the chicken pieces, set aside. Heat the stock and season well.

2 Scatter half of the sliced onion onto the bottom of a large casserole and cover with a layer of sliced potatoes. Lay the browned chicken pieces over and scatter with bacon bits and thyme. Now spread the rest of the onion slices followed by a neat top layer of sliced potatoes. Pour over the hot stock and finally add the rest of your butter in small pieces over the surface. Cover and bake for 2 hours until tender.

3 If you wish you can remove the lid for the final 20-30 minutes and increase the oven temperature to 180°C so that the top potato slices crisp slightly and turn golden.