I’m literally getting hungry typing this as roast organic free range chicken is my absolute favourite and I normally cook this once a week or at least once a fortnight!
It is super easy to prepare and takes approx. 1 hr 20 mins to cook.
Ingredients
- One free range organic chicken (I love the Daylesford ones in UK)
- 3 onions
- 2 carrots
- Thyme
- 1 lemon
- sausage meat (optional if you want to do stuffing)
Method
- Prepare in an oven proof baking tray or large pyrex dish with a little covering of olive oil
- Peel and chop into large quarters the onions – saving one ½ of an onion to put inside the chicken, spread the onions out over the base of the dish
- Wash the carrots and chop the ends off and scatter between the onions
- Place a sprig of thyme under the chicken
- Place the chicken on top of the onions and carrots – I either place ½ an onion and ½ lemon inside and sometimes I add sausage meat into the cavity as well as well as a sprig of thyme
- Push it all inside with the sausage meat last so its first to come out
- Then drizzle olive oil onto the chicken, massage into the breast and legs so the whole chicken is covered but not dripping, this will give a lovely crispy skin
- Then place another few sprigs of rosemary on the chicken and place it in a hot oven.
The chicken will be cooked according to its size but I say if it’s a medium chicken it normally takes about 1 hour 20 in a hot oven (200 C)
While the chicken is cooking you can roast some potatoes, carrots and parsnips to go with it, depending on what you like.
For my roast potatoes I normally peel and chop into quarters, then I boil them until a little soft, drain them, shake them in a hot pan to absorb water, drizzle with oil and then tip into an ovenproof dish and roast for about 50 mins.
Gravy
I keep it very simple – a chicken stock cube, a spoon of plain flour, mix together with cold water to avoid lumps, add boiling water to approx. 1 pint.
Once the chicken is cooked I take it out and cover it with foil to rest.
I pour the gravy into the cooking tray and boil it up to thicken and then serve with the chicken.