COOKING: Roast Chicken

Mmmm… there's nothing tastier than an oven roasted chicken served with chunky vegetables and potatoes.

I like oven cooking because it allows me to potter about doing other stuff while the food pretty much takes care of itself.

Here's a quick way to give your chicken a juicy Mediterranean flavour.

This dish normally serves four people, but can stretch to six - just add extra potatoes and vegetables.

Ingredients:

A whole chicken, cleaned

One lemon

Rosemary

Basil/Tarragon - or both

Sea salt

A few glugs of olive oil

Four large potatoes

Two carrots - two per head

One red pepper

One large onion

One head of garlic

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 210 ºC.

2. Wash the chicken inside and out and put it into a roasting tray. 

2. Cut the lemon in half. Remove all the garlic garlic cloves. Don't peel them, just place them on a chopping board with the butt of a knife resting on them one at a time, giving each a good whack with the your fist on the knife handle. This will crack the cloves, allowing the juice and the flavour to escape while cooking. 

3. Stuff your chicken with the lemon halves, about 5-6 garlic cloves, and the herbs. Save a twig or two of rosemary for the vegetables. Hold the chicken so the legs are pointing up, then pour in two glugs of olive oil inside, so it drizzles down into the stuffing. Place it back in the middle of the roasting tray. Rub the chicken skin with a bit of olive oil and sea salt.

4. Put the chicken in the oven, middle shelf. Set your timer on 35 minutes. 

5. Peel the carrots and chop them roughly, size is up to you (if they are very small you can leave them whole). Wash the potatoes well. Chop them up into bite size chunks, skin on. Chop the red pepper and onion roughly the same. Remove the rest of the garlic cloves and crush them as before.

6. Put the potatoes, vegetables and garlic onto a roasting tray and pour over a few glugs of olive oil. Sprinkle with half a handful of rosemary leaves and some sea salt, mix.

7. When the times goes, lower the chicken down to a bottom shelf and put the vegetable tray in on top, but not touching the top of the oven. Use this time to baste the chicken. (If the two trays do not fit into your oven like this, alternatively you can cover the chicken with tin foil and move it up, and place the veg tray on the bottom. When removing them later, pop the vegetables up for 5-10 minutes to give them "crunch".) 

8. Set the timer for 45 minutes. You may want to baste the chicken once more during this time. 

9. When the timer goes, check if the chicken is done by pushing in a sharp knife. If clear liquid flows out, it's ready. If not, leave in for another 10-15 minutes and repeat the knife test.

Serve and enjoy!