Flat Roast
Roasts are THE thing to have in a flat if you are cooking together. However, you can also cook up this bad boy by yourself. The main reason why every flattie should make roasts is because they are cheap and economical. For $15-$19 you can buy a whole organic chicken and it can be made into two meals, each for three people. You can then boil down the carcass afterwards and use it for stock. This entire operation is cost effective and delicious and you'll be making roasts for years after.
COOKING TIME: 1 hour 15 minutes, plus resting of 15 minutes.
SERVES: Up to 4.
Ingredients:
One whole chicken, suitable for roasting.
3 Tablespoons of soft butter.
A healthy pinch of salt and pepper
1 lemon
Thyme, oregano and tarragon. A fistful of each.
Method
Preheat the oven to 220 degrees Celsius.
In a deep roasting dish, prepare the chicken. Take the salt, pepper and soft butter and smear it all over the top of the chicken and the breast. Make sure you're covering the whole breast area, and also the spaces between the side of the chicken and the legs. As the chicken cooks, this butter will melt and drip into the cooking chicken, creating a delicious taste.
Salt the cavity and add some pepper really generously. Slice the lemon in half roughly, squeeze the juice of one half into a bowl and save for later, and shove each half deep up the chicken cavity.
Salt the chicken all over and put it in the oven to cook for 1 hour and 15 minutes
After 15 minutes of cooking, remove the chicken from the oven and brush it all over with another tablespoon of soft butter. Return to the oven
After 45 minutes, remove the chicken from the oven and brush it all over with the juice from the half lemon. Return it to the oven once again.
After one hour, baste the chicken with the juices. You can do this by scooping up tablespoons of the juice at the bottom of the pan and simply drizzling it back over the top of the bird. Do this a few times and finally leave to cook for a final 15 minutes.
When the chicken is fully cooked, the drumsticks should roll in their joints very easily. You can poke the chicken in the thigh with a skewer and if the juices are yellow or clear it is cooked.
Remove from the tin and leave to rest on a plate covered by tin foil for 15 minutes. This is essential! The meat MUST rest before you do anything. While you are leaving the beauty, get on with finishing the last parts of the meal that you want to serve i.e. the potatoes.
You can now serve your chicken.
ALSO:
some people swear by roasting the chicken upside down with the breast down so that the juices trickle through the chicken and into the breast to stop the meat from becoming dry. This hasn't really made a difference for me, but if you were to try it, smear the butter over the back of the chicken before putting in the oven.
You can make a stuffing by blending shredded bread, a diced onion, a tablespoon of oil, 2 cloves of garlic, salt and pepper, and herbs until it is a sticky clumpy ball. You can put this in the chicken cavity and it will cook with the bird.
For gravy, simply heat the contents of the pan after the chicken is cooked with a gravy cube or cornflower until it is smooth and rich. Serve in a small jug.
