Classic Roast Chicken

The other day, Lundulph commented that he fancied roast chicken and we both racked our brains and couldn't remember when we last had made roast chicken. Most definitely in our early days of dating, but not since then. So he put in a request for roast chicken and I set about with my quick internet searches to find something suitable and I did - "Classic Roast Chicken" - and it seemed to be easy enough to do.

But as always, I end up tinkering - this time because the recipe didn't mention potatoes and I thought something green would be nice as well. So here goes. Now I have a lot of goose fat left over from Christmas. I filtered it as best I could and keep it in the fridge. I suspect I'll have to throw away most of it as it's bound to go off soon enough, but it hadn't yet, so I decided to use that. I'm sure butter will work just as well.

Ingredients
serves 4

1 kg waxy potatoes
4 medium-sized carrots
1 large onion
4 - 5 tbsp goose fat
1.4 kg whole chicken
salt and pepper
1 lemon
several sprigs of thyme
800 g button mushrooms
400 ml chicken stock from cubes
1 tbsp plain flour 1 tbsp soft whey butter
broccoli

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven to 190 °C.
2. Peel and rinse the potatoes, carrots and onion, then cut into bite-sized chunks and place in a large deep-ish roasting tin. The tin should be large enough to fit the chicken and the vegetables without them being too crowded.
   
3. Use half of the fat and spread among the vegetables. Stir together to get them as well coated as possible. The goose fat should go runny in a warm kitchen.
4. Remove any giblets from the chicken and discard or save for something else. Mix together salt and pepper and sprinkle inside the chicken cavity.
5. Wash the lemon and thyme. Cut the lemon in two. Stuff one lemon half, some of the thyme, then the other half and finally some more thyme into the main cavity.
6. Make some space in the middle of the roasting tin and place the chicken there on its back.Rub the remaining goose fat all over.
7. If there's any more thyme remaining, sprinkle over the vegetables and put the odd sprig between the wings/legs and body of the chicken. Season with salt and pepper and bake for 40 minutes.
8. Peel and clean the mushrooms, and add them to the roasting tin after the 40 minutes are up. Stir to get them coated with some of the fat, then bake everything for a further 50 minutes.
   
9. Just before the time is up, make up the chicken stock and place in a frying pan and bring to a simmer. Put the broccoli to steam as well.
10. Remove from the oven and carefully pour out the juices from the roasting tin into the frying pan, the cover the chicken and vegetables with aluminium foil and let rest for 10 - 15 minutes, while you make the gravy
11. Keep the gravy simmering in the pan and stir in the flour, followed by the whey butter. Keep simmering until it thickens a little and goes opaque.
12. Carve the chicken and serve with the roasted vegetables, steamed broccoli and gravy.

Well, a quick search on the blog just now reveals that my original thought of not having had roast chicken for ages is not true. Methinks that we're getting old and forgetful. Lundulph did make roast chicken a a few years back. OK, so it's still "ages" but not as much as pre-dating the blog.