Roast Chicken

I was at Waitrose and was easily swayed by a gimmick, and that gimmick improved my quality of life. Their chickens - both the free-range and organic, have the roasting time printed directly next to the weight and time SPECIFIC TO THE SIZE OF THE CHICKEN. Amazeballs. So I took it home and did it - roasted it for one hour and fourteen minutes at 200C and it was PERFECT. Juices running clear and all that.

So dinner last night a free-range roast chicken with stuffing (done the old-fashioned way, stuffed right up there inside the chicken) and potatoes.

Here's the base for the stuffing - I had some sage left over from a recipe the week before, and half a loaf of wholemeal bread I baked a few days before. A day earlier I sliced the bread into cubes and dried it out in a low oven. I then forgot about it and left it in the turned-off oven for a day. Two days? I can't remember.

I put some butter and a few lardons in a frying pan. Then I added a shallot, an onion and one arm of celery, chopped. Some salt, too. A few chopped up mushrooms that I had left went in next. Then some fresh sage, chopped and some dried parsley. After a bit, a half a cup or so of chicken stock (made from an organic boullion cube - still cheap) to loosen up the tasty browned bits on the bottom of the pan.



Into a big bowl went the bread crumbs, the veg mixture and one egg. I mixed it all up, and then kept adding chicken stock until the bread was quite moist.



I sliced two small pats of butter and ground a bunch of pepper and salt in a bowl. The butter went between the skin and breast, and the salt and pepper all over the skin. Then SHOVE THE STUFFING ALL UP IN THAT BIRD. FO' REAL.



I put the chicken in a tray on top of some sliced onions, a couple of potatoes chopped in bits and a carrot. Into the oven it went.

THEN I SET THE TIMER FOR 1:14 AND WATCHED TV.

THEN I ATE MY FREAKIN' DELICIOUS CHICKEN. THE END.



note: was extremely tasty - think a big part of that was its free-range-ness. it looked different than a regular chicken, less implant-sized breasts, etc. makes a difference.