I was put off roast chicken for years by my Mum, who used to bang a chook in the oven without doing anything to it. It would come out as dry as old boots & we would have to smother it in gravy to make it palatable. I moved out of home when I was 18 & I didn't cook a roast chicken until I was nearly 23. It was my husband (then fiancé) and my first meal in our first home. And the oven didn't work properly, so it was raw & inedible. I was put off again for years, and then I tried again. I tried stuffing the skin, stuffing the cavity, rubbing it in lemon juice, shoving a Lemon or an onion up its bum, all sorts of spice rubs & herb combos. The results were always average. I knew I couldn't just bung it in the oven with nothing done to it at all but I also didn't like all the fussing about, it seemed to defeat the purpose of having a "simple" roast.
However, things have now changed. The best roast chicken recipe I have found is in Jane Kennedy's book "Fabulous Food Minus the Boombah". And she got it from US chef Thomas Kellar. It sounds weird. But it is easy, juicy & bloody tasty. I promise.
INGREDIENTS:
1 whole chicken
(preferably organic. If not, at least buy free range. If you can't get free range, buy some tofu & make a curry. Seriously - don't support the cruel industry that is supermarket factory farming. It's unethical just bullshit).
Salt (I always use Himalayan sea salt)
Pepper
METHOD:
Preheat the oven to 230*c. Yes, that hot. Pat the chicken dry with paper towel, place on a roasting rack in a roasting pan without a lid. The recipe then says to "rain salt over the bird" - seriously, it's like poetry! - so do it, about a tablespoon. Then grind fresh black pepper on as well. I also love to grate fresh nutmeg on my chicken but that's not in the original recipe.
Roast for about 40 minutes. Then take out and baste, especially over the breast. The roast for another 40 minutes.
While the chook is cooking I throw either whole small sweet potatoes rubbed with olive oil, or big wedges of pumpkin tossed in olive oil & cinnamon, into the oven. I prefer to roast the veggies onto a separate rack, they just get too fatty & greasy if you roast them with the chicken. A couple of times I have quartered fennel bulbs and roasted them as well, which become soft and juicy and delicious. These I do tuck in around the bird. The veggies will need at least the last 40 minutes so pop them in before you take the chook out to baste it.
Organic Roast Chicken with Fennel and pumpkin
When it's all cooked I serve the chicken with the roast veg & if I haven't made the fennel I also make a green salad of cos lettuce, avocado & sometimes crumbled feta (if I have it) dressed simply with lemon juice & olive oil. Jane Kennedy suggests a blob of Dijon mustard on the side which is lovely. The salty, crispy skin of the chicken is divine, like very thin pork crackling, and the acidity of the lemon juice & Dijon mustard cuts through the fat. It's just a perfect combo, really.
Some weeks I don't do a whole chicken I just buy organic or free range drumsticks and do those. If I do this, I slash the legs twice to the bone, roast for around an hour & don't bother to baste them. You really only need to baste the whole chicken to stop the breast meat drying out.
Organic Roast Chicken Drumsticks with Sweet Potato,
Green Salad and Homemade Aioli
Try it! Easy to cook, delicious to eat, stuff all washing up. :)
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