Roasted Chicken

My media noche menu was planned only 2 days before the occasion.  Roasted chicken was part of the list which I initially thought of buying a ready cooked one. But then…I felt hayati prefers roasting our own chicken so I took out my apprehension of ending up with an awful dish.

It was not my first roasting experience but my first attempt to roast a whole chicken… I was so delighted with the outcome – a tasty, juicy perfectly roasted chicken! Glad I changed my mind and decided to cook instead of buying a cooked one.

Ingredients:

• 1 kg whole chicken
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, at room temperature
• Salt & ground black pepper
• 1 medium onion, cut into quarters
• 1/2 lemon
• 3 cloves garlic,peeled
• 1 teaspoon thyme (use fresh thyme if available)
• 2 medium size potatoes, cut about 1-1/2 inch cubes.
• 1 tablespoon olive oil

Direction:

1. Preheat oven to 200 degrees.
2. Clean the chicken, removing the giblets and excess fat from the cavity. Wash thoroughly and pat dry with paper towels.
3. Sprinkle generous amount of salt & pepper, both outside and in the cavity.
4. Spread the softened butter over the entire surface of the chicken.  Lift the skin to separate it from the breast meat, then rub butter in between. 
5. Put in the garlic cloves and slice of lemon in the cavity.  Make an incision on the skin covering the cavity and tuck in the legs crosswise.  Sprinkle some more salt & pepper.
6. In a roasting pan, arrange the onion and potatoes. Add salt, pepper and olive oil.  Place chicken in the roasting pan, over the bed of onion & potatoes.  Cover with aluminum foil and bake for half an hour.  Uncover and roast further for 1 hour until the skin turns golden brown. The chicken should be done if the juice runs clear when pierced.
7. Let it rest for 10 minutes before cutting.

And there we had a perfect roasted chicken served in our media noche table!!!  Happy New Year!