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