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Whole chicken

A 3 kg chicken serves 6 nicely. Extras:

See here for stuffing.

Prep

  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, 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 and pepper 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!

You can do this the day before. Cover with a tea towel and put in the fridge.

Prep (on the day)

  1. Score the legs. Make 3 deep cuts into each drumstick, parallel, all the way to the bone. (This is to equalise the cooking times: the leg meat would otherwise take longer to cook than the breast meat.)
  2. Make some herby butter. This year I used thyme and it was very nice. The last time I used basil, parsely, and garlic. Either way, chop the herbs, mince the garlic, and mix it all into the softened butter.
  3. Separate the skin from the breast meat, starting at the neck end. Pull the skin horizontally towards you, while pushing a spatula underneath.
  4. Fill the skin with herby butter, pushing from the outside to spread it around.
  5. If you're cooking the stuffing inside the chicken, stuff the cavaty now. If not, insert a microwaved lemon? (Untested)
  6. Truss the legs and wings with string
  7. Insert the thermometer probe into the breast
  8. Place the chicken on the trivet and leave it there long enough to come up to room temperature.

You can make a trivet if you like. AFAICT it does nothing to aid the chicken. However, a halved onion in the roasting tray will be very tasty by the time the chicken is cooked (cut the root off but leave the skin on). Garlic will just burn and is probably just wasted.

Cooking

  1. Pre-heat the oven to 200C fan.
  2. Stick the chicken in for an hour to an hour and a half. You're looking for the internal temperature to hit 65C.
  3. 15 mins before it's done, you can optionally layer on some bacon.
  4. Leave it to rest for 30 mins. The internal temperature should continue to rise to about 75C.