The best roast chicken you’ll ever eat
It’s probably quite poor for someone who tries to write a food blog, but I can’t remember the last time I cooked a full meal. The summer went by in a blur of work and holidays and the fact that I work five or six nights each week doesn’t help either with ‘proper’ eating. But now that September is here (and nearly over, where does the time go?), things have started to settle down in work and I feel I’m finally getting back into a normal routine. And a normal routine means more time for cooking, which is great – not least because of the money-saving aspect. My finances deal a lot better with a week of planned meals where I cook the food we have in the house, rather than daily trips to Tesco to grab something to tide me over till the next day’s trip.
One of the easiest things to cook that’s really deceptively impressive is a roast chicken. It’s a regular Sunday meal in our house; and the leftovers can make many different lunches and dinners for a few days. I’ve experimented with countless techniques, recipes and cooking times, and I think I’ve got a handle on how to prepare the nicest roast chicken ever. And I’ll share it with you, coz I’m nice like that. (Note: cooking temps and times will vary based on the size of the chicken and oven differences. This is what I do for my oven but adjust for how yours usually behaves).
First, pre-heat the oven to 180C (350F).
Next up, the chicken. Most stores and butchers will have chickens in sizes from 1.2kg to 2kg. For two people, I find a 1.2kg will do a good Sunday lunch with pretty much no leftovers, while 2kg will keep us in lunches and dinners for about three days. Choose one to suit how many people you’ll be feeding or how long you want to eat chicken leftovers for. The chick I used here is 1.4kg. Take it out of its packaging and pop it into an oven dish. (You’ll notice in the pics that there’s tinfoil in the base of my dish – you don’t have to do this; I just find it makes it easier to get the chicken juices and bits out of the dish afterwards)
Next, make up your marinade. Get a ramekin dish and pour in a generous amount of EVOO, Sriracha, salt, pepper, thyme and garlic powder (roughly two tsps of each spice). Mix up your sauce and put aside.
Back to the chicken. Get a sharp knife and cut two slits in the skin at the top of the breasts. Take a teaspoon and slide it under the skin at each cut (see helpful picture). This separates the skin from the chicken.
Next, load up your spoon with some marinade and slide it back into the slit in the skin, pushing the marinade in under the skin so it coats the meat inside. Repeat with the other cut. Then pour the remaining marinade over the chicken. Ta dah!
Now it’s ready for the oven. Pour about 100mls of cold water in the base of your dish. Cover entirely with tinfoil and pop in the oven for two hours. After two hours, remove the tinfoil and return the chicken to the oven for about 20 minutes to get a good colour on the skin. Remove and test with a skewer to make sure the juices run clear.
At this point I eat what I want (which is usually a lot because this chicken is sooo good). Then when the chicken has cooled completely, strip all of the remaining meat from the bones, pop it into some containers and store in the fridge, using as needed. This was the entire haul from the 1.4kg chicken, brown meat on the left and breast on the right.
If you wish you can use the bones to make chicken stock: fill your biggest pot with water, the chicken carcass, and roughly chopped onions, carrots and celery. Let it simmer away on the stove for a couple of hours, skimming the fat away from the top of the water if any settles there. Then after a few hours you can strain the liquid and keep for soup.
The Church of Nom 