How I Roast Chicken for a Roast Chicken Dinner
Succulent and tender chicken meat cooked with and surrounded by a delicious layer of sage, onion and sausagemeat stuffing.
Ingredients
For the Roast Chicken:
- 1 quantity of Sage and Onion Sausagemeat Stuffing
- 1 whole chicken, roughly 2 – 2.5kg in weight
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- ½ teaspoon freshly ground sea salt
- good grinding of freshly ground black pepper
For the gravy:
- 4 tablespoons plain/all-purpose flour
- 1 litre of potato or vegetable water or chicken stock (See Recipe Notes)
- salt and freshly ground black pepper - optional
Instructions
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Take the chicken out of the fridge roughly 30 – 45 minutes before you want to cook it – it is always best to start cooking chicken when it is at room temperature rather than straight from the fridge.
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Collect together your equipment (see Recipe Notes below) and ingredients.
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Stuff the chicken: make your sausagemeat stuffing if necessary
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Put a layer of stuffing between the skin of the chicken and the breast meat. To do this, use your hand to gently ease the skin from the meat and make space for the stuffing.
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Stuff the area between the skin and the breast meat with around ⅓ of the stuffing. Gently ease it into the space using your hand, being careful not to rip the skin
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Use your hands to pat the stuffing into a neat shape and to ensure it is roughly the same thickness over the breast.
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Put the remaining stuffing inside the cavity of the chicken
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Oil and Season the Chicken: use your hands to rub the olive oil all over your chicken making sure you oil the underside of the bird and get into all the creases and nooks and crannies.
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At the same time make sure the flaps of skin are pulled over the stuffing in the cavity of the chicken and ensure the skin covers and is pulled around the stuffing between the skin and the breast meat.
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Grind over a generous portion of sea salt and black pepper.
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Roast the chicken: calculate the cooking times (see below) and preheat oven to Fan Oven 180°C/200°C/400°F/Gas 6
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Cover the chicken and stuffing with foil and cook for 20 minutes.
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Turn the oven down to Fan Oven 160°C/180°C/350°F/Gas 4
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Continue to cook for 30 minutes per kg.
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30 minutes before the end of cooking time, remove the foil and continue to cook so the skin browns and becomes crispy.
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When the chicken is cooked, remove from the oven, transfer to a chopping board and rest for 15 minutes before you carve and serve. If you want crispy skin, do not cover with foil or the chicken will sweat and the skin will lose its crispiness. It will still be quite warm so don't worry about not covering.
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Make the Gravy: if you can remove any of the fat sitting on top of the delicious gubbins in the pan, do so. You need some fat for the gravy so you do not need to be too precious about it.
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Add the flour to the pan and mix thoroughly. I use a small balloon whisk.
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Add the vegetable or potato water or stock and bring to a gentle simmer stirring all the time. Cook for 4 – 5 minutes stirring regularly and scraping up all the sticky bits from the base of the pan.
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Strain the gravy into a saucepan and cook until you achieve the consistency you seek. Some people like thick gravy and others a thinner sauce, go with whatever you like. If it is too thick, add some extra vegetable water.
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Taste and adjust the seasoning, if necessary. Transfer to a gravy boat for serving.
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Carve and Serve your Roast Chicken: I like to serve roast chicken with roast potatoes and vegetables which you have roasted alongside the chicken, some green vegetables and also some creamy, dreamy mashed potatoes. Don't judge, but I also love some apple sauce on the side!
Recipe Notes
Equipment for the stuffing, if necessary:
- food processor
- kitchen scales and measuring spoons
- chopping board and knife
Equipment for the roast chicken and gravy:
- roasting tin
- carving board and carving knife and fork
- saucepan and sieve or strainer
- gravy boat
How long should you cook the chicken for?
The length of time a chicken takes to cook will depend on both its size and also the temperature of the oven. When calculating the weight of the chicken, it is very important to add the weight of the Sage and Onion Sausagemeat Stuffing as well. The stuffing recipe given here weighs approximately 700g, depending on the size of the onion you use.
- Preheat oven to Fan Oven 180°C/200°C/400°F/Gas 6
- Cover the chicken and stuffing with foil and cook for 20 minutes.
- Turn the oven down to Fan Oven 160°C/180°C/350°F/Gas 4
- Continue to cook for 30 minutes per kg.
- (For those working in imperial measures, 1 kg is 2.2lbs and 100g is 3.5oz)
- 30 minutes before the end of cooking time, remove the foil and continue to cook so the skin browns and becomes crispy.
The chicken in the photographs was 2.3kg and the stuffing was 700g which comes to 3kg in total. So I:
- cooked the chicken with the foil on for 20 minutes at the higher temperature.
- continued to cook at the lower temperature for 1 hour.
- I then removed the foil and continued to cook for a further 30 minutes.
- Total cook time therefore was 1 hour and 50 minutes.
To check the chicken is cooked:
Pull the leg away from the bird slightly and skewer into breast flesh behind the leg. Any juices coming out of the bird should be clear and the meat should be opaque. If you see any pinkness or blood, cook for a further 10 – 15 minutes. If you use a meat thermometer, the internal temperature of the meat should read 165°F or 75°C.
Quantity of stuffing:
I use this amount of stuffing to stuff a 2 – 2.5kg chicken. We really like a lot of stuffing! If you use smaller chicken e.g 1.4kg – 1.5kg. I use half this amount of stuffing. I make the full amount and, as it freezes well, I then freeze half for another occasion.
Gravy - potato water, vegetable water or stock?
I use the potato water in the first instance and if I need more, I use either the water from cooking other vegetables or some stock.