There’s nothing more classic on a Sunday than a roast chicken. For me, roast chicken is all about having tender, juicy flesh with salty, crispy skin accompanied with sweet carrots and savoury potatoes.
Ingredients
whole Chicken, prepped as described above
9 medium Carrots, one roughly chopped, the others peeled/scrubbed and topped.
5 large Potatoes, peeling and thinly sliced
2 Leeks, one thinly sliced, the other quartered
1 Lemon
2 stalks of Celery, roughly chopped
2 tbsp Honey
Butter
Salt & Pepper
Thyme
Bay leaf
Flour
White Wine (optional)
Recipe
Pre-heat oven to 200 degrees.
Grease a baking dish for your potato gratin. Thinly slice one of the leeks and sauté this in a bit of butter on a frying pan until softened but not coloured. Layer your first lot of potatoes, then top with the softened leeks and season, then layer your next lot of potatoes. Keep going until you fill your baking dish, add knobs of butter to the top layer.
Add chopped one chopped leek, one chopped carrot and the celery to a larger baking dish. Prep your chicken then add any bits you’ve removed to the pan with a bay leaf. Add ½ cup water so the bottom doesn’t burn when you put it in the oven. Season butter with salt, pepper and thyme in a bowl, then with your hands from the neck of the chicken, carefully put your fingers in between the breast meat and skin until you reach the end of the breast, careful not to break the skin. Rub the butter on top of the breast meat using your fingers.
Season the skin and insides with salt and pepper. Cut three slices of lemon, squeeze the juice over the skin, then shove the rest of the lemon into the cavity of the chicken.
Roast your chicken for 10 minutes, then reduce to 180 degrees and cook for the remaining time. I use the standard 20 minutes per pound plus 20 minutes at the end. Add your potatoes this time also, uncovered to get crispy tops. If you have anything bigger than a 5lb chicken, I would recommend starting the potatoes on the bottom shelf covered with foil then remove the foil in the last 30 minutes.
For the carrots, heat a frying pan, add the carrots, the honey and pour boiling water until just covering the carrots. Cook on a medium-high heat with a lid on until carrots are tender and water has evaporated leaving a sticky glaze on the carrots.
When the chicken is cooked, set it on a board to rest and put the baking tray on the stove top. Add about 100ml of white wine and leave to cook for about 5 minutes when the alcohol has cooked off. Get a potato masher or fork and mash those vegetables in the pan, simmer for 5 minutes. Then strain the gravy into a saucepan. The vegetables should have thickened the gravy, but if it’s not to your desired thickness, whisk flour in now to thicken. Taste and keep warm.
Carve your chicken. If you’re cooking for two and have a small chicken, you can carve the whole breast off for each person. Or do as I did and carve a ‘supreme’, which is the breast and wing section as this ensures you get the most breast meat off the bird. The way to do this is to start at the heart shaped bottom tip of the bird, feel for the bone until the bottom when you get to the wishbone, which feels like an inverted triangle. Poke your knife around the wish bone to carve it out. Then take your knife and carve from the tip of the heart straight down. If you cooked your chicken all the way through, the breast meat will fall off on its own so you just need to help it along. When you get to the end of the bone section, you’ll find the joint for the wing, cut through the cartilage and you should have a whole supreme lying on the board with just the skin to separate it from the rest of the carcass. To carve just the breast, remove the wishbone and the wing first. Then carve the breast in the same way.
Assemble your dish on the plate, drizzle with lots of gravy and serve.
I find potato gratins perfect for chicken and other poultry as the onion, or leeks in my case, compliment the meat. At the same time I love using roast potatoes to mop up the last bits of gravy in the pan, so for special occasions like Christmas, or if I’m cooking poultry for Easter, I would do two types of potatoes, often a gratin and a roast.
But for your regular Sunday a gratin is perfect as you simply layer the potatoes and the softened rings of leek, pour over some stock and shove it in the oven with the chicken and forget about it. The ideal way to cook the gratin is to sit the chicken on a rack above the gratin to let the juices fall onto the potatoes. I didn’t do this as I wanted rich gravy for my chicken.
So underneath my chicken sat leeks, celery, carrots and a bay leaf. All ready to roast in the juices of the chicken for my gravy. I also prep my chicken a fair bit before cooking, whether it’s a roast or just sec tioning for something else. It’s not really necessary but I find it will yield better looking chicken pieces and it also give the gravy added meatiness.
Here’s a chart of chicken parts to aid in visualising (and naming) the parts I’m going to refer to. My prep varies as you can get chickens in various stages from the supermarkets, butchers and farmers markets. Generally though, I will remove the following to add to gravy; the knuckles, tail, and half/whole wing tip. If I’m provided with giblets, other innards and neck, I will store this for making a rich stock to use in a different dish, or to cover the potato gratin.
There’s normally a thick layer of fat near the bottom end of the chicken and I trim some of this off, not all of it though. I then shove that underneath the skin on top of the breasts with some chopped herbs. The idea is that during the roast, the fat will render away and moisten the breasts. If that fat isn’t there I will do the same with knobs of butter and herbs.
The skin of the chicken gets seasoned, herbed and topped with slices of lemon as I’m making a lemon roast this time. I normally shove half an onion and the rest of the lemon inside the chicken to steam the insides for added flavour. Whether you’re stuffing your chicken or not, it’s important to season the insides as well as juices get released from here. I also baste my chicken with remaining stock every 15-20 minutes of cooking time to add richness to the gravy and further moisten the breast meat, provided you start on a high temperature, this should not affect the crispiness of the skin.
So here is my version of the Classic Sunday roast chicken! Enjoy.
whole Chicken, prepped as described above
9 medium Carrots, one roughly chopped, the others peeled/scrubbed and topped.
5 large Potatoes, peeling and thinly sliced
2 Leeks, one thinly sliced, the other quartered
1 Lemon
2 stalks of Celery, roughly chopped
2 tbsp Honey
Butter
Salt & Pepper
Thyme
Bay leaf
Flour
White Wine (optional)
Recipe
Pre-heat oven to 200 degrees.
Grease a baking dish for your potato gratin. Thinly slice one of the leeks and sauté this in a bit of butter on a frying pan until softened but not coloured. Layer your first lot of potatoes, then top with the softened leeks and season, then layer your next lot of potatoes. Keep going until you fill your baking dish, add knobs of butter to the top layer.
Add chopped one chopped leek, one chopped carrot and the celery to a larger baking dish. Prep your chicken then add any bits you’ve removed to the pan with a bay leaf. Add ½ cup water so the bottom doesn’t burn when you put it in the oven. Season butter with salt, pepper and thyme in a bowl, then with your hands from the neck of the chicken, carefully put your fingers in between the breast meat and skin until you reach the end of the breast, careful not to break the skin. Rub the butter on top of the breast meat using your fingers.
Season the skin and insides with salt and pepper. Cut three slices of lemon, squeeze the juice over the skin, then shove the rest of the lemon into the cavity of the chicken.
Roast your chicken for 10 minutes, then reduce to 180 degrees and cook for the remaining time. I use the standard 20 minutes per pound plus 20 minutes at the end. Add your potatoes this time also, uncovered to get crispy tops. If you have anything bigger than a 5lb chicken, I would recommend starting the potatoes on the bottom shelf covered with foil then remove the foil in the last 30 minutes.
For the carrots, heat a frying pan, add the carrots, the honey and pour boiling water until just covering the carrots. Cook on a medium-high heat with a lid on until carrots are tender and water has evaporated leaving a sticky glaze on the carrots.
When the chicken is cooked, set it on a board to rest and put the baking tray on the stove top. Add about 100ml of white wine and leave to cook for about 5 minutes when the alcohol has cooked off. Get a potato masher or fork and mash those vegetables in the pan, simmer for 5 minutes. Then strain the gravy into a saucepan. The vegetables should have thickened the gravy, but if it’s not to your desired thickness, whisk flour in now to thicken. Taste and keep warm.
Carve your chicken. If you’re cooking for two and have a small chicken, you can carve the whole breast off for each person. Or do as I did and carve a ‘supreme’, which is the breast and wing section as this ensures you get the most breast meat off the bird. The way to do this is to start at the heart shaped bottom tip of the bird, feel for the bone until the bottom when you get to the wishbone, which feels like an inverted triangle. Poke your knife around the wish bone to carve it out. Then take your knife and carve from the tip of the heart straight down. If you cooked your chicken all the way through, the breast meat will fall off on its own so you just need to help it along. When you get to the end of the bone section, you’ll find the joint for the wing, cut through the cartilage and you should have a whole supreme lying on the board with just the skin to separate it from the rest of the carcass. To carve just the breast, remove the wishbone and the wing first. Then carve the breast in the same way.
Assemble your dish on the plate, drizzle with lots of gravy and serve.
2 comments:
This is a delicious family meal. I love the flavors you incorporated in this one!
I'm Ben, now I am hungry. I am thinking a nice chicken dinner is in order maybe for tomorrow. Tonight is Mexican - Cinco Da Mayo! Lovely looking dinner. Thanks for sharing.
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