Jamie Oliver's Christmas Cookbook
By Jamie Oliver
2 hrs plus resting
Not Too Tricky
serves 6
About the recipe
Here’s a really solid recipe for roast chicken, using flavoured butter to ring the changes, mix up the flavours and, in turn, influence the flavour of your gravy too, as well as what you choose to serve the chicken with. I hope this inspires you.
Recipe From
Ingredients
1 x 1.8kg whole free-range chicken
100g Flavoured butter (see page 66)
1 lemon
GRAVY
2 onions
2 carrots
2 sticks of celery
1 bulb of garlic
½ a bunch of mixed woody herbs (15g)
2 tablespoons plain flour
150ml red or white wine
600ml chicken stock
optional: 1 teaspoon berry jam
Method
- Get your chicken out of the fridge 1 hour before you want to cook it, cover it and leave it to come up to room temperature. Preheat the oven to 180oC/350oF/gas 4.
- Choose and make your Flavoured butter, then remove 100g for the chicken, returning the rest to the freezer. Warm and scrunch the butter in your clean hands, then rub it all over the chicken. Halve the lemon and place inside the cavity, then sit the chicken in a sturdy roasting tray. Peel the onions, wash the carrots, then roughly chop with the celery, smash up the bulb of garlic, and add it all to the tray. Scatter over the herbs, pushing a few sprigs into the cavity.
- Cook the chicken for 1 hour 30 minutes, or until golden and cooked through, basting occasionally, and turning the veg when you do so. To check it’s cooked, use tongs to lift up the chicken – if the juices run clear out of the cavity, happy days. You can also check by pinching the thigh meat – if it comes away easily from the bone, you’re good to go. Remove to a platter, cover with tin foil and a clean tea towel and leave to rest for 30 minutes while you make your gravy.
- Put the tray on a medium heat on the hob, skimming away most of the fat. Stir in the flour, mashing all the veg and scraping up all the sticky bits from the base. Pour in the wine and leave to bubble and cook away, then pour in the stock and simmer for 10 minutes, or until the gravy is the consistency of your liking. Strain the gravy through a coarse sieve into another pan, pushing all the goodness through with the back of a spoon, then taste and season to perfection. It’s nice to balance the flavours with a little jam, then you can leave it ticking away on the lowest heat, until needed.
- Serve the chicken and gravy with Baked bread sauce and steamed seasonal greens, or your favourite spuds and veggie side dishes.
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