Recipe Twenty Eight: Roast Chicken

I'm not sure why but doing a 'Roast' seems to be something that has an unnecessary 'difficult aura'.

This is a good and bad thing.

Good:

 'You'll have to wait I'm making a roast' 

is an perfectly acceptable excuse for when you pour yourself a glass of wine make your self a cup of tea, grab a new magazine and shut yourself in the kitchen away from the rest of the world.

Bad:

So many people avoid making them all together.

So to dispel that myth (for the cook only, everyone else should still think you are slaving away all day just to present them with the horrendously difficult to prepare meal) here is a dead easy, quick prep Roast Chicken.

Roast Chicken:

A medium sized chicken ( Around 1.6kg)

1 Lemon (cut in half)
1 Tablespoon of Olive Oil

2 Garlic Cloves
Garlic Salt 

Paprika

Preheat your oven to 220C.
Rinse your chicken and inside the cavity. Pat it dry with some paper towels.
Place a wire rack in your roasting pan & place chicken on top.
Squeeze the juice from your lemon over the bird & massage into the skin.
Brush your chicken all over with the olive oil.
Sprinkle the outside liberally with garlic salt & paprika.
Smash your two garlic cloves with the flat side of a knife, don't worry about peeling them & place the cloves & the rest of the lemon halves inside the chicken.
Tie the legs together with kitchen string.

Roast the chicken in the oven for 1hr & 10 minutes or until cooked through.
You can test for this by piercing the thigh with a skewer and making sure the juices run clear.
Stand for 10 minutes covered loosely with tin foil & then serve.

xx

Recipe Twenty Five: Chilli, Soy & Sesame Drumsticks.

It has been a super quiet week around the kitchen this week.

It has also been super hot & I'm just one of those people who turn into a 'tired four year old who is constantly on the verge of tantrum' when its hot.

It's not an admirable trait...I know I should work on it.

Anyhow our air conditioning doesn't quite make it to the kitchen so on days like these I am effectively preparing food in a sauna. 

Now I hear sauna's are supposed to be good for you HOWEVER this kind of sauna (any any kind of prolonged exposure to temperatures over 35) seem to be really bad for my marriage

(Love you Honey!)

So in normal Courtenay fashion I am apologising with food,

this recipe in fact:

Chilli, Soy & Sesame Sticky Chicken Drumsticks

1/4 cup of Soy Sauce

1/4 Cup of Tomato Sauce

1/3-1/2 Cup of Sweet Chilli Sauce 

(I added this to taste so I have to estimate the actual amount)

2kg of Chicken Drumsticks

1 Tablespoon of Sesame Seeds

1/4 cup of sliced spring onion (for garnish)

Arrange your chicken legs in an oven proof dish.

Whisk your three sauces together.

Taste & add any extra of the sauces to taste.

Pour over your drumsticks

Turn all of the drumsticks to coat them in the marinade.

Put the dish in the fridge to marinate for a couple of hours.

I only marinated them for half an hour and still got a very nice flavour.

 However I did complete one of the next possibly completely unnecessary pain-in-the-but step.

Preheat your oven to 200C
Put the chicken in the oven and bake for 40 minutes.

Because I only marinated my drumsticks for half an hour I basted the legs with marinade every 10-15 minutes. I think this may have help with the moist factor too...

Take the chicken out of the oven and decoratively sprinkle with sesame seeds.

Return to the oven for 15 minutes.

Remove from the oven again and let rest for 5 minutes.

Sprinkle with sliced spring onions and serve.

Optional step:

Ask for forgiveness for your crappy attitude the last week...turn up air-conditioning.

xx