Roast Chicken

Ingredients

1 large whole chicken (ideally corn fed)

1 bunch (15g-ish) fresh thyme

1 bunch fresh rosemary

1 blub of garlic

1 lemon

2-3 cups white wine

½ cup olive oil

1% Sea salt by weight (1-2 tbsp)

This is a fairly ‘classic’ roast chicken that should work well as the centrepiece of a Sunday roast, or chicken dinner. The pic here is from a mini thanksgiving meal I did for two people (where an entire turkey would have been excessive). I also like it with focaccia and a salad as a lighter, summer meal.

This method is designed to get an even cook, with the breast meat reaching just reaching temp as the dark meat is well over, with a nice golden-brown skin all over. The essential challenge of a whole roast bird is the dark meat needs to be cooked to a higher temp than the white (which risks becoming dry if taken too high). You need at least a 15F differential - so breast at 160, legs at 175. Doing it this way, will give you a solid 25 degree difference - the legs and thighs will be at 185, almost like bbq, as the breast reaches temp. It also does a good job keeping the breast moist, so even if you go a bit over it won't be dry. It works better for bigger birds (4 pounds and up).

This will produce some cooking juices, as the chicken rests you can thicken these with a rue or cornstarch slurry to make a gravy, or you can just leave them as is. Depends on the context – for a roast I’d make a gravy, for the lighter (I guess Italian style) presentation with bread and salad, I don’t bother, pouring a little of the cooking liquid over and using the bread to mop it up.You can also add mushroom stock and some grilled and sliced mushrooms to it (then thicken) for a mushroom gravy that’ll go well with a chicken dinner.

Essentially, this is your baseline to get a whole roast bird, but you can take it in any number of directions.

Preheat oven to 190. Do some math: Total cook time is 10 minutes plus 20 minutes per pound. Divide this by three for three even periods. (So, a 4-pound bird is 10+(4*20) = a 90-minute cook time, which we’ll do in 3, 30-minute periods)
Rub the bird all over with oil, then cut the top off the garlic blub (so the flesh of the cloves is exposed). Gently rub all of the skin with this. Cut the lemon in half and likewise rub the skin gently with it. (Don’t squeeze the lemon, you don’t want a lot of juice on it, just gently rub it) season all over with flakey salt.
Stuff with the lemon, garlic, pinch of salt and a spring or two of the herbs.
In a large tray make a bed of the herbs and lay the chicken on it on its side (so one wing down, one up). Place it into the oven on a medium to high self with the legs facing towards the back of the oven. Cook for the first period.
For the second period, flip the chicken onto its other side and pour about 1.5 cm of white wine in the bottom. Cook with legs facing back again.
For the final period, flip breast side up and cook, again legs facing back. For smaller birds you may want to raise the temp to 220 or so to fully brown. Remove and rest for 10 minutes. The wine and juices in the bottom of the pan form your sauce.