I am a really big fan of Jamie Oliver. For those of you that don’t know Jamie, he is a world famous chef who has quite a few television shows on cable television. Jamie is a native of Great Britain but travels the world for his many shows and his charity efforts.
I must admit that I “lifted” this recipe from Jamie’s website but it is a great food experience that I want to share with you today. I know Jamie would not mind.
Jamie Oliver’s Perfect Chicken Recipe
Ingredients
• 1 x approximately 1.6kg chicken
• 2 medium onions
• 2 carrots
• 2 sticks of celery
• 1 bulb of garlic
• olive oil
• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 lemon
a small bunch of fresh thyme, rosemary, bay or sage, or a mixture
Serves 4 - 6
To prepare your chicken
• Take your chicken out of the fridge 30 minutes before it goes into the oven
• Preheat your oven to 240°C/475°F/gas 9
• There’s no need to peel the vegetables - just give them a wash and roughly chop them
• Break the garlic bulb into cloves, leaving them unpeeled
• Pile all the veggies and garlic into the middle of a large roasting tray and drizzle with olive oil
• Drizzle the chicken with olive oil and season well with salt and pepper, rubbing it all over the bird
• Carefully prick the lemon all over, using the tip of a sharp knife (if you have a microwave, you could pop the lemon in these for 40 seconds at this point as this will really bring out the flavor)
• Put the lemon inside the chicken’s cavity, with the bunch of herbs
To cook your chicken
• Place the chicken on top of the vegetables in the roasting tray and put it into the preheated oven
• Turn the heat down immediately to 200°C/400°F/gas 6 and cook the chicken for 1 hour and 20 minutes
• If you’re doing roast potatoes and veggies, this is the time to crack on with them - get them into the oven for the last hour of cooking
• Baste the chicken halfway through cooking and if the veggies look dry, add a splash of water to the tray to stop them burning
• When cooked, take the tray out of the oven and transfer the chicken to a board to rest for 15 minutes or so
• Cover it with a layer of tinfoil and a tea towel and put aside. Now is the time to make your gravy
To carve your chicken
• Remove any string from the chicken and take off the wings (break them up and add to your gravy for mega flavour)
• Carefully cut down between the leg and the breast
• Cut through the joint and pull the leg off
• Repeat on the other side, then cut each leg between the thigh and the drumstick so you end up with four portions of dark meat
• Place these on a serving platter
• You should now have a clear space to carve the rest of your chicken
• Angle the knife along the breastbone and carve one side off, then the other
• When you get down to the fussy bits, just use your fingers to pull all the meat off, and turn the chicken over to get all the tasty, juicy bits from underneath
• You should be left with a stripped carcass, and a platter full of lovely meat that you can serve with your piping hot gravy and gorgeous roast veggies
This is great meal for a special Sunday family meal or for the coming holidays.
Take a few minutes to visit Jamie Oliver’s website and I know that you will come away with a treasure chest of new recipes. Visit Jamie at: Jamie Oliver
(4 votes, average: 4.75 out of 5)
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