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Whole Chicken Roast



I love watching the American TV sitcom F•R•I•E•N•D•S all the time.  In those the Thanksgiving episodes are some of my favourites.....apart from the hilarious scenarios and funny moments....the one thing that I really like is the Thanksgiving meal set at Monica's table. It would be a feast with a lot of delicious food and a nice big Turkey roast at the centre. Slurpp!!Slurpp!! oohh yumm!!! 

 At first I thought roasting turkey was a hard thing to do. It must take a lot of time & effort to get something to look so glorious and yummy. So I started looking for the method of cooking on the Internet. And to my surprise, it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. Hence, I gathered all the information that I could........mixed n matched a couple of them and made a recipe of my own using chicken.

 What started off as a fun experiment, turned out to be a delicious and healthy meal in itself. It’s the perfect meal to make when you’re expecting company, fancy Sunday suppers, or just because it’s Friday! Mr. Peter and our kids love it.

A whole roasted chicken is just one of those tricks that every good cook needs to have up his/her sleeve. As long as you follow the directions, you’ll end up with a picture perfect roast chicken every single time!

So here's the recipe.

 Ingredients
1 whole chicken with skin
2 medium onions
2 - 3 potatoes
2 sticks celery
1 bulb garlic
1 - 2 tbsp olive oil (for crispier skin use 4 tbsp butter instead of olive oil)
salt & ground black pepper - to taste  
1 lemon
1 small bunch fresh thyme, rosemary, bay or sage, or a mixture 

 For the gravy
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1/4 cup water


To prepare your chicken
Take your chicken out of the fridge 30 minutes before it goes into the oven. Ideally, it should be at room temperature. Preheat your oven to 240°C. 

Break the garlic bulb into cloves, leaving them unpeeled. 
Leave a couple of garlic cloves inside the chicken in the part between the skin and the meat. 

Drizzle the chicken with olive oil and season well with salt and pepper, rubbing it all over the bird. (I really like this part. This is when we give a good massage to the bird, making it absorb all the seasonings and tenderizes the meat) 

 Carefully prick the lemon all over, using the tip of a sharp knife. Put the lemon inside the chicken's cavity, with the bunch of herbs and the balance garlic cloves. Stuffing the chicken with fresh herbs infuses it with flavor. 

 You can tie the bird's legs with string.....but it’s completely up to you whether you want to tie the legs together or not.

To cook your chicken
Place the chicken on top of the sliced onions in the roasting tray and put it into the preheated oven. Turn the heat down immediately to 200°C and cook the chicken for 1 hour and 20 minutes. 

 If you're doing roast potatoes, this is the time to crack on with them – get them into the oven for the last 45 minutes of cooking. You can also add broccoli and mushrooms.

When cooked, take the tray out of the oven and transfer the chicken to a board to rest for 15 minutes or so. 

 To make the gravy
While the chicken is cooling on the cutting board, defat your pan drippings by skimming the top with a spoon and reserving only the solids in the pan. 
Place your pan on your stove burner over medium-high heat and reduce this mixture by about half.

Combine the cornstarch and water in a small bowl. Add this mixture to your reduced drippings and heat until the gravy has thickened. Serve over your carved chicken.

To carve your chicken 
Remove any string from the chicken. Carefully cut the chicken as per your desired sizes. I used a pair of kitchen scissors to cut. It's much easier than carving with a knife.

So, that's it. 
It's yumm! It's healthy! It's homemade. 
A perfect meal to make for family and friends.

 I served this along with a Caesar salad and fresh home made bread. (These recipes can be found in my blog...do check out....they are super easy too) 

 There was some chicken leftover, don't worry, make a chicken sandwich out of it. (Do check out my Coleslaw chicken sandwich recipe) 



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