Roast chicken is the ultimate comfort food, but it can be so hard to nail a simple and reliable recipe that ticks all the boxes in terms of flavour, ease of cooking, and visual appeal. This recipe does all three, and as we are coming up to the festive season, it’s a great one to add to your repertoire. Feel free to swap potatoes, and carrots for any other vegetables you have. Sweet potatoes, squashes/pumpkins, Brussels sprouts, swedes, turnips, beetroots, cabbage, cauliflower, would all work well in this recipe.

Ingredients

The Chicken
1 whole chicken
3 tsp freshly ground sea salt
2 tsp freshly fround black pepper
1 tbsp olive oil

The Veggies
1 kg baby potatoes, washed with skin on
12 brown button mushrooms
3 large carrots cut into chunks
1 large onion, quartered
5 small birds eye chillis
1 juicy lemon, quartered
5 sprigs fresh thyme
6 cloves garlic, skin on
Salt, pepper and olive oil

 

Method

1. First, tackle the chicken. Mix the salt, black pepper and olive oil together and rub evenly all over the whole bird. Place the chicken in the centre of an oven tray.
2. Now scatter the other veggies evenly around the chicken on the same baking tray.
3. Sprinkle the veggies with salt, black pepper and olive oil. Make sure that some lemon wedges are on the chicken so that their juices seep into the chicken as it cooks.
4. Bake in the oven at 180*C until the potatoes are cooked through (about 40 minutes). Remove the potatoes and other veggies amd set aside in a dish. There will also be some lemony gravy from the chickens roasting juices. Scoop all this up and set aside.
5. Put the chicken back in to bake. Bake for a further 45 minutes or until the skin is crispy and the juices run clear. Gather more gravy and mix with the other gravy collected earlier.
6. Heat the gravy until piping hot in the microwave before serving, making sure it is clear and cooked through.
7. Serve the roast chicken and veggies together on a dish. Drizzle on the lemony gravy and enjoy!

 

Note: I would like to say that this recipe serves 4 people i. e. if you each have a quarter of the chicken. But this perfect roast chicken is so delectable, with crunchy skin and meat falling off the bone, that you should really only expect this to feed 2, with only scraps for leftovers.