The Eight Ball [8Ball]

This roast chicken is my staple, my ‘famous’ roast chicken that receives acclaim from many. People carry on about it like it’s something special or hard to achieve. It looks fancy, and tastes outstandingly good. Tender, juicy, moist, and tasty. Best served with your basic vege. I serve it with beans, carrots, roast potatoes, and a gravy made with pan juices and the slow roasted garlic, along with a bit of rosemary. Can’t go wrong. Without further ado, I bring you, my Secret Roast Chicken.

Secret French Roast Chicken

Serves 4

Secret French Roast Chicken

1 large lemon

2 ½ tablespoons olive oil

4 garlic cloves, crushed

4 whole bulbs garlic

1 teaspoon sea salt

1.7kg whole chicken (free range, cleaned, rinsed, patted dry with paper towel)

4 sprigs thyme

Vegies to serve, and gravy

1. Preheat oven to 190°C. Cut lemon in half, juice one half. Set aside other half.

2. Combine 2 tablespoons lemon juice, 2 tablespoons oil, crushed garlic and salt. Season with pepper. Rub this baste all over inside and outside of chicken. Place remaining lemon half, and the thyme, inside the chicken cavity. (If you have unwaxed cooking string, you can tie the legs together, but if you don’t, it’s not essential).

3. Place chicken, breast side down, on a rack in a large roasting pan (if you don’t have a rack it’s no biggie). Roast for 15 minutes. Cut tops off whole garlic bulbs to expose tops of cloves inside. Drizzle garlic with remaining oil.

4. Turn chicken over (breast side up) and place garlic, cut side up, around the chicken. Roast for a further 45 minutes, or until chicken is cooked (to test whether the chicken is cooked, poke it with a fork. If the juices that run out of the holes run clear, it’s cooked. If they’re cloudy, it’s not). Pull out the chicken and transfer to an air tight container to rest for at least 15 minutes. Use this time to pull the roasted cloves out of your garlic bulbs and prepare your gravy. Serve with vegies, gravy, and roasted garlic.

Roasted garlic has a mellow, sweet flavour, and is great for adding flavour to mayonnaises and dressings, along with gravies and glazes. It won’t taint your breath like fresh garlic will. They become soft and squishy. Buy a pre-made gravy if you don’t want to make it yourself, add pan juices, a few roasted garlic cloves chopped up (or mashed) and some rosemary. Tastes like you made it from scratch! The roasted garlic cloves can be eaten on their own, also. They taste lovely smeared on your beans and carrots.

What’s so secret about this French Roast Chicken? How easy it is to prepare. People go on about it like you deserve a Michelin star, when in reality, any fool can prepare this dish. My big secret, is that it’s one of the easiest meals to prepare in my repetoire. But of course, I’m not going to tell that to the people praising me for slaving away in the kitchen. Highly recommend it to anyone scared of doing a roast chicken, you’ll never look back. One of my all time comfort foods.