- Serves 4 to 6 people.
- Prep time: 20 minutes | Cooking Time: 1 hour & 15 minutes.
INGREDIENTS
- 2 to 2.5kg pasture raised whole chook
- 1 carrot
- 1 onion
- 4 cloves of garlic
- 1 fennel bulb
- 1 -2 tsp of unrefined salt
- 1 - 2 tsp ground black pepper
- 1 Tbsp herb butter at room temperature
- 1 lemon
METHOD
- Preheat the oven to 200 degrees.
- Line roasting tray with vegetable trivet by adding onion, carrot, fennel & garlic.
- Rinse, drain and pat chicken dry.
- Cut lemon into 4 and place inside the chicken cavity.
- Carefully separate the chicken breast from its skin softly with your fingers. Spread herb butter evenly between both breasts and the skin.
- Season chicken with salt & pepper.
- Place the chicken upside down (breast down) onto the vegetable trivet in the roasting pan and season this side.
- Place chicken onto the middle rack of your oven and cook for 10 minutes.
- Turn the temperature down to 180 degrees and cook for another 20 minutes.
- Remove the chicken from the oven, carefully with tongs and a spatula flip the chicken the right way up (breast up) and return to a 160 degree oven for the remaining cooking time. See notes for total cooking time.
- Remove the chicken from the oven 5 minutes before reaching total cooking time and rest for 10 to 15 minutes before carving.
NOTES
Cooking time
200 degrees for first 10 minutes
plus +
20 minutes for every 500 grams. (2.5kg chicken would need 1hr 40mins).
Remove Chicken from oven 5 minutes before reaching calculated cooking time.
Opening the leg/thigh area once rested will give you a good indication if chicken is cooked through.
Save pan juices for gravy, it would be a sin to waste this flavour.
Cooking times can vary depending on oven. This recipe was developed using an electric fan forced oven.
Trivet can be made of any combination of sturdy vegetables and herbs.
Be sure to not let the chicken touch the bottom of the roasting pan or the skin may stick and break.
