Fancy a spitroast?

I’ll do anything to get more hits to this blog. Even give away my secret to making the most tender and tasty roast chicken. This is really quick and easy to make and you’ll get a disproportional amount of kudos for using the spit function in your oven which most people don’t even know that they have.

Ingredients:

- A medium sized chicken

- Rock salt

- Freshly cracked peppercorns

- 1 fresh lemon

- 50g of butter

- Several cloves of garlic

- Dried herbs (rosemary, thyme)

- Fresh herbs (sage, bay leaves, rosemary, thyme)

- Vegetables of your choice

- Potatoes cooked your way

The benefit of spitroasting the chicken is that the bird rotates and cooks evenly. After you’ve washed and trimmed the chicken, pat dry with paper towels and rub inside a mix of rock salt and cracked peppercorns all over the skin and the inside of the cavity.

Mix the zest of a lemon in a bowl with butter, garlic and some dried herbs (thyme and rosemary both go well). Part the skin from the breast and stuff the space with the buttery mixture. A good trick is to put the mixture in the freezer for a few minutes so it is easier to insert. It may have softened up a bit too much during mixing and the gooey substance will be tricky to handle.

Next, stuff the cavity with a bunch of fresh herbs (sage, bay leaves, rosemary, thyme for example), some chunks of garlic cracked but in their skins still and some lemon chunks. This will infuse the chicken with flavours and moisture from the inside.

The tricky part is making sure you tie the chicken up tightly otherwise the wings or legs will flap around when rotating and eventually break off (no more kudos for you). Fix to your spit as per the oven instructional manual and roast at around 180C for 90 minutes above an oven dish. This will catch all the good juices which you can then boil down with some white wine and cream to make a nice sauce.

Carve and serve with mash potatoes and your favourite veggies.