Whole chicken

Serves 6.

Prep (the day before)

  1. Make the legs a bit prettier. Find the ball joint at the end of one of the drumsticks. Cut around the skin. Push the joint the wrong way, twisting, until it snaps. Cut the ligaments etc. You should be left with a neat bit of bone sticking out of the drumstick. Repeat on the other side.
  2. Remove the neck. I don't think there's any technique to this: just cut through the neck at the base. There's no obvious place because the spine continues all the way down, btu just cut close to where it connects to the body. There are bones so it's a bit tough to cut through, but keep cutting and twisting and eventually it'll come off.
  3. Dry brine the chicken. Just rub salt all over the skin. You can rub it inside the cavaty too. Pour the salt into a bowl first - don't dip into the salt box with chickeny hands! Cover with a (non-linty) cloth and put in the fridge.

Stuffing

  1. Dice the onion and put it in the wok.
  2. Add a bit of water and salt, put it on the gas, cover, and let it soften.
  3. Uncover, let the water evaporate.
  4. Crush half of the garlic and chop the sage.
  5. Make a well in the onion, put in quite a lot of butter (2cm?)
  6. Place the garic on top, and pour over some olive oil.
  7. One the garlic looks done, add the sage and stir it all together.
  8. Let it all cook down a bit longer.
  9. Mix in the panko.
  10. Beat the egg in a bowl.
  11. When the stuffing has cooled down a bit, mix in the egg.

Prep (on the day)

  1. Score the legs. Make 3 deep cuts into each drumstick, parallel, all the way to the bone, to help it cook.
  2. Chop the herbs, mince the garlic, and mix it all into the butter (which should be soft by now).
  3. Stuff the cavaty with stuffing. You can pack it in quite densly.
  4. Ram the butter mixture under the skin.
  5. Coat the outside of the chicken with olive oil
  6. Truss the legs with string
  7. Insert the thermometer probe into the breast
  8. Prepare a trivet in the roasting dish. I used a whole onion (slices into four disks), a bulb of garlic (cut in half), and the lemon I zested for the stuffing (cut in half). (I don't really know whether the trivet does anything...)
  9. Place the chicken on the trivet and leave it there long enough to come up to room temperature.

Cooking

  1. Pre-heat the oven to 200C fan.
  2. Stick the chicken in for about an hour. You're looking for the internal temperature to hit 65C.
  3. Leave it to rest for 20-30 mins. The internal temperature should continue to rise to about 75C.