I’m in week six of my new job as the food commercial editor and I have been absolutely loving it.
To really get immersed in the role, I think I’ve hosted friends and family for dinner on five of the last six weekends to test out the recipes and entertaining tips from the brands.
Last weekend Florian and I hosted our very good friends for dinner and I knew it was time to pull out the recipe I’d been the most nervous to try.
Colin Fassnidge’s whole roast chicken with famous chicken bread from delicious.
My mum is a great cook, but roasting a chicken has been one of those dishes that just didn’t cooperate with her. I was worried I’d inherited the same curse and have kept away from roasting chooks in fear of a burnt and dry chicken.
I knew if I really stuffed it up we could all just laugh about it and I wouldn’t feel too bad so I thought, ‘why not?’
There aren’t too many ingredients and will set you back no more than $50 so it’s definitely a cheaper dish to create for the six serves it makes.
The recipe calls for you to place a whole lemon in the chicken, but I cut mine in half and squeezed some of the juice into the cavity before placing them in.
The hardest part of the whole dish is definitely separating the skin from the meat and sliding the butter underneath without ripping it. I used a small pointed knife and performed what must have looked like open-heart surgery to open up the gap beneath the skin.
I recommend taking your time to do this as it’s fiddly and when done correctly results in crispy buttery skin that locks in the flavour.
I, unfortunately, don’t have a fan-forced oven and I think this could have contributed to having to cook the chicken for an extra 20 minutes. I was also nervous about undercooking it so I erred on the side of caution and continued to baste it with the oil in the bottom of the pan to keep it moist whilst extending the cooking time.
When it was done, I used kitchen scissors to cut up the chicken into six pieces and served it alongside the sourdough bread.
I think next time I may use a bigger pan, a larger sourdough loaf and a little less oil as I found there was a little too much olive oil left in the bottom of the dish.
I wasn’t too sure about the combination of basil, thyme and tarragon but the three together were a magic trio infused with olive oil, garlic and butter that could be tasted in the meat of the chicken, leaving a zesty lemon after taste.
I made Broccolini wraps and Corn cobs with oregano and chilli butter from taste.com.au to accompany the chicken and these complimented the dish surprisingly well too.
Why not check out the recipe here and let me know how you go!
Bon Appétit!
-tgfs x
That Girl from Sydney 