Roast Chicken

"Remember Aussie Sundays, when the chook was worth the wait ..."

Yes, that's right, I've taken to roasting chicken. It's become our regular Saturday night dinner. Why is it that when you cook the different bits of chook separately they come out average? But when you roast the whole bird it comes out juicy, tasty and with crispy skin? Finger licking delicious! We fight over every bit - the wings, the drumsticks, the thighs, the breasts and the wishing bone.

It's also a fantastic family meal, as we argue over the different bits, and trade with crispy skin. The interaction is fantastic, and the kids just put it away.

I pulled a very simple recipe off the internet one day. It goes something like this.

Ingredients
1 chook
1 lemon
salt
oil

Method

1. Preheat oven to 250 deg C.
2. Wash chicken and pat dry with a paper towel.
3. Cut lemon in half, and squeeze some of the juice over the chicken, and some inside the chicken.
4. Sprinkle salt inside the chicken.
5. Put the lemon back together again, and stuff the chicken with the lemon. Tie the legs to hold lemon in place.
6. Sprinkle salt on the chicken.
7. Pour oil on chicken.
8. Rub salt and oil into the chicken.
9. Place chicken in deep, ovenproof dish, uncovered. Chest up. Use bottom shelf in oven.
10. Roast at 250 deg C for 30 minutes.
11. Reduce oven to 180 deg C and roast (uncovered). Roasting time depends on weight of chicken - allow 1 hour of total roasting time for each 1kg of chicken. So if your chicken weighs 1.5kg then you would roast 30 minutes on 250 deg C, and then a further 1 hour on 180 deg C, for a total roasting time of 1.5 hours.

Timing
The best part about roasting chicken is the timing. Here is how it works.

• Sabina and I go for a horse ride, and return tired.
• I leave the little girl with the ponies (she is now old enough for this) and I rush back to the house, preheat the oven, get the chook sorted, and put it in the oven.
• I then rush back to Sabina, crackers and dip in hand.
• Sabina snacks while I unsaddle the ponies.
• I zip back, turn down the oven.
• Then, together, we put the ponies away.
• Then we head back to the house.  I now have one happy child, who has now regained enough energy to play, or help set the table, while I get some veggies ready.

Caveats
Almost forgot. And then we got the electricity bill.