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Herb Roast Chickenchicken
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's "MEAT" (page 243)
date29 July 2014, authorMichal Krzywonos, author182 visits
serves4 people
cooking time1 hr 40 min

Recipe ingredients: 1 chicken (about 1.5 - 2 kilo, smaller better)100 grams of buttersome herbs (roughly chopped)1 clove of garlic ½ glasses of white wine (chardonnay, new world)some saltsome pepper
A really good chicken doesn’t need much embellishing — it just needs roasting. But when the herb garden starts to come good, often before the end of April in mild weather, I like to celebrate a sunny day by grabbing handfuls of fresh herbs — thyme, marjoram and chives are usually showing, parsley might come from the greenhouse — mixing them with soft butter and smearing them all over a plump spring chicken (ideally from my friends at Providence Farm — see page 136). And, if the sun continues to shine, it might be our first al fresco meal of the year. It’s an exercise to repeat, of course, at any point in the summer.

Take off any string or elastic trussing from the chicken, place the bird in a roasting tin and spread out its legs from the body. Enlarge the opening of the cavity with your fingers, so hot air can circulate inside the bird. It will cook quicker like that.

Put the butter in a bowl, throw in the roughly chopped herbs and the garlic and season well with salt and pepper. Mix together with your fingers, then smear all over the chicken, outside and in.

Place in the centre of a hot oven (210°C/Gas Mark 6) and leave for 20 minutes (phase 1). Then baste the chicken, turn the oven down to 180°C/ Gas Mark 4, pour the wine into the tin (not over the bird) and roast the bird for another 30-40 minutes (phase 2), depending on its size. Open the oven door, turn the oven off and leave the bird for 15-20 minutes (phase 3). This is usually enough time to roast a small chicken through without burning the skin (the reason I prefer small chickens for roasting). For a bigger bird, you will have to make the necessary adjustments, adding a few minutes to each phase. You may also wish to protect the bird’s skin with buttered foil for, say, the first 20 minutes of phase 2. A good test for doneness is to pierce that part of the bird where the thigh joins the breast; the juices released should run clear.

Forget about gravy. Carve the bird in the tin, as coarsely and crudely as you like (no wafer-thin breast slices, please), letting the pieces fall into the buttery pan juices and letting the fresh juices from carving mingle with the rest. Then take the tin to the table and pass it round your family or guests in the pecking order of your choosing, so they can pull out the bits they fancy. Pass it round a second time, to help redress grievances and encourage the further and fairer distribution of juices.

Acconipaniments? Roast potatoes would be de trop. A green vegetable would probably go unnoticed. Some good bread to mop up the juices will be appreciated, while a leafy salad, produced only after your guests have demolished the chicken, might assuage a few guilty consciences.

The discovery of the roasting tin, a day or so later in a cool larder, is a joy you may not wish to share. Plunder the jellied juices, congealed bits of skin, and crusty meat tatters that cling to the carcass before you quietly make the rest, along with the giblets, into stock (pages 470-72).