Roast Chicken Recipe | with Theo Michaels

Everyone needs a good roast chicken recipe up their sleeve and this one is a real winner! The trick is to firstly cook the chicken covered in foil to help keep the flesh incredibly moist and succulent, before uncovering and blasting with heat for that irresistible colour and crispy skin.

Ingredients (serves 4):

1 medium free range chicken

1 lemon

1 hard stock cube (chicken)

4 bay leaves

1 bulb garlic

750g new potatoes

250g carrots, peeled, cut into thirds

250g parsnips, peeled cut in half lengthways

2 red onions

Dried oregano

Salt and pepper

½ cup white wine

2 tbsp cornflour

Method:

Pre-heat the oven the 180cFAN.
Place the stock cube in a small bowl with 50ml of olive oil and microwave for 30 seconds. Mash together to create a paste and reserve.
Thickly slice one red onion and scatter in the middle of a roasting tray. Drizzle a little olive oil over the onions and season.
Place the chicken on top of the sliced onions and then stuff the chicken with the bay leaves and half a dozen cloves of garlic (left whole). Halve the lemon, squeeze the juice over the top of the chicken and place the used lemon pieces inside the chicken.
Scatter the carrots, potatoes and parsnips around the edge of the chicken and pour over the wine. Season with the dried oregano and a little olive oil.
For the chicken itself, drizzle a little olive oil over the top and season generously with salt, pepper and oregano. Cover tightly with foil and place into the preheated oven for 1 hour.
After the hour is up, remove the foil and brush the stock cube and olive oil paste all over the chicken and place back in the oven for 20-30 minutes or until cooked through.
Remove from the oven, pour the juices into a saucepan and leave the chicken to rest for while you make the gravy (you can loosely cover the chicken with foil if you want.)
Mix together the cornflour and a couple of tablespoons of water to make a slurry then whisk this into the juices in the saucepan. Heat gently, stirring until thickened, and then pour into a serving jug.
Serve the chicken!