Roast Chicken

Roast chicken is one of the easiest things to cook and is such a comfort food.  Brilliant with roast potatoes and gravy in Winter and fabulous with salads in the Summer.  You can eat it plainly cooked with just some olive oil and salt and pepper, or can embellish it with herbs, spices, flavoured butter and different stuffings or sauces.  This recipe is for the basic version.  Although not necessary, I always put a lemon inside because I like the lemony flavour it gives the meat and the gravy and like the smell of it cooking.

If I am making a full roast chicken meal with roast vegetables and gravy I cook a larger chicken than we will need so that there are plenty of leftovers to make a chicken pie for the following day.

Nearly all the chickens you buy from the supermarket and butcher these days have the giblets (innards) removed.  If you do happen to buy a chicken that has the giblets in a small packet inside the cavity of the bird, remove these before cooking.  You can use them to make delicious stock if you want.

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C.
2. Put the chicken so that it is “breast up” (see the photo above) and then rub a little olive oil all over the skin of the breast and legs. (The bits you want to crisp up and glisten).  Sprinkle on some salt and pepper.
3. Place the whole lemon inside the cavity of the bird.  You can also put in some herbs (e.g. Thyme, Lemon Thyme, Rosemary) inside with the lemon if you want to add an extra flavour.

Cooking time

The cooking time will vary depending on the weight of the chicken you buy.  The rule of thumb is that you cook it for 20 minutes per 500g PLUS half an hour.  So, for the chicken in the picture below which was 1.75kg, the total cooking time was 100 minutes (1 hour 40 minutes).

Once the chicken is cooked you should remove it to a warm plate or board to rest while you make the gravy (if you are making gravy) or get everything assembled.  You can cover the chicken with tin foil and it will retain its heat for quite some time.  This makes for a very tender and juicy bird.