What she’d tell you
This is not one dinner. It is a dinner, two lunchboxes and a pot of stock, and once you learn the timing you will never need to look it up again: twenty minutes for every half kilo, and fifteen minutes of rest at the end.
What you need
Written for 5. Change that in the app and the amounts follow.
Tick things off as you get them ready.
Continue to the method ↓
How it goes
Take the chicken out of the fridge 30 minutes before it goes in the oven, and pat it thoroughly dry. Heat the oven to 220°C.
Mash the softened butter with the minced garlic, chopped rosemary and parsley, the juice of two lemon wedges, salt and pepper.
Slide a spoon under the breast skin to loosen it and push most of the butter underneath. Smear the rest over the outside.
Put the used lemon and the rosemary sprigs in the cavity, tie the legs, and tuck the wing tips under.
Scatter the quartered onion, halved garlic bulb and the potatoes in the tin, sit the chicken on top, pour the broth around and drizzle with oil.
Roast 10 minutes at 220°C, then drop to 180°C for 20 minutes per 500 g: about an hour and a quarter here. Baste twice.
Rest it 15 minutes, uncovered, before carving.
If you haven’t got it
Chicken Stock
dry white wine, which is what it is really asking for
Rosemary
thyme, or whatever hard herb is in the fridge
Keeping it
Four days in the fridge, and the carcass makes stock: do not throw it away.
Slices covered with a splash of broth at 160°C for 15 minutes. Cold is also perfectly good in a sandwich.
