It’s still winters in some parts of the country, though it came in quite late in Kolkata this time. But hey, you always have an excuse for some warm comfort food, don’t you? Yes I am talking about my go to comfort food when I am not in a mood to do a lot of things for dinner. You can never really get tired of some the wholesome Roast Chicken. I cannot for sure.
It doesn’t take too much effort, you put it in the oven and just forget about it. Now, there are many ways you can make a roast. It appears in a lot of cuisines in their own style. There are Indian Roast Chicken versions too. The one I am going to share today though is an English recipe. In fact this is what usually we had when I was a kid. My dad stayed in England for several years so classic British recipes are a regular at our household.
But this is not my dad’s recipe I have made some modifications to the original one.
All that you need:
- Whole chicken with skin – 1
- Small potatoes with skin – 4 cut in halves
- Lemon – 1/2
- Ginger Garlic paste – 2 teaspoon
- Red Onion – 3 small whole onions, half an onion in thick slices and half an onion for stuffing
- Garlic – 10 cloves
- Butter – 50g at room temperature
- Dried herbs (Thyme + Oregano) – 2 teaspoon
- Olive oil – 2 teaspoon
- Seasoning – to taste
- Thread to tie the legs
Let’s get started
– Pre-heat oven at 220° C
– Mix the dried herbs on to butter to make herbed butter
– Rub ginger garlic paste on the chicken and keep aside
– Place potato, cloves of garlic, onions on your baking tray, drizzle some olive oil, salt and pepper over them and mix.
– Push the veg on the sides to make way for the chicken
– Place the sliced onions in the middle.
– Rub the chicken with the herbed butter all across.
– Pull the skin near the breast and insert two blobs of this herbed butter.
This will give you an extremely juicy chicken breast after roasting.
– Stuff the cavity with half a lemon, half an onion and few garlic cloves.
– Tie the legs together so that the stuffing doesn’t come out easily.
– Place the bird on the sliced onions.
There’s a science on the placement of the chicken. When you are placing the chicken on the onion slices it allows the hot air to circulate better, cooking the bird well from underneath as well.
Sprinkle seasoning across. And poke the bird with a fork at places.
Roast the bird at 220° C for 45 mins
Serve hot with bread.
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| The same recipe during one of our Christmas Lunch |
It’s extremely easy. you just need t put it in the oven and forget about it. It’s my go to recipe for our Christmas lunch. You can add vegetables of your choice too.
Tip: Don’t throw the au jus , or the light gravy youll find on your baking tray. you can thicken
it with a pinch of flour or enjoy it just like that!
Untill next time, cheers!
Wow. that looks delicious and the way you wrote it, sounds simple too.It's just that I get jitters about cooking/baking anything in particular 😉
Not that different from how we would roast a chicken in the United States, except maybe for the ginger garlic paste (which sounds wonderful). Roasting on the bed of onions really does make a difference.
Thanks Alana.
Don't worry Parul, you'll overcome those jitters when you see a good batch of baked wonders!