Jamie Oliver’s fabulous roast chicken
How do you add flavour without garlic and onion? Easy-peasy with Jamie Oliver’s perfect roast chicken. Despite not designing the roast to be low fodmap, it absolutely is! The trick is stuffing handfuls of fresh herbs under the skin and filling the cavity with lemon, bay and rosemary. The roast chicken tastes superb and no-one will notice that it’s low fodmap! Paired with gravy made with low fodmap stock from San Elk, you’ve got a winner winner chicken dinner!
INGREDIENTS
whole chicken (I used 2.145kg free-range chicken)
salt and pepper
3 handfuls of fresh herbs (basil, parsley, marjoram), picked and finely chopped (depending on the productivity of my herb patch, I have also added sage, oregano and thyme)
4 tablespoons good quality olive oil (I suspect you’ll end up using a little more)
1 lemon, cut in quarters (see note below)
4 bay leaves, torn
2 sprigs fresh rosemary
METHOD
Preheat the oven and a roasting tray to 225C.
Wash and dry the chicken with paper towels.
Gently lift the skin at the tip of the chicken breast, being careful that it doesn’t rip and pull up gently. With your other hand, gently separate the skin from the meat. Use small scissors to carefully cut through any connective tissue. Push in the chopped herbs, salt, pepper and some of the olive oil. Departing from Jamie’s excellent instructions, I find it easier to make a bit of a slurry with the chopped herbs, oil & seasoning and then use this to stuff the skin.
Stuff the cavity with the lemon halves, rosemary and bay leaves. Once you’ve stuffed the chicken, leaving no flesh exposed, tuck the winglets under and tie firmly with kitchen string. Just for clarity - I’m wondering if Aussie lemons are in fact much bigger than English lemons. Despite using a fairly large 2+kg chook, I could only fit 1/2 lemon (2 x quarter lemons) in the cavity, along with the sprigs of rosemary, sage and thyme.
In his cookbook “The Naked Chef” (1999), Jamie recommends slashing each thigh 3-4 times and rubbing in some of the leftover herbs before rubbing the skin with olive oil and salt + pepper. Add a little oil to the heated baking tray before placing the chicken breast side down. Allow to cook for 10 mins before turning. Then cook for 25 mins per 500g at 200C. I think (once again departing from Jamie’s excellent instructions) that the trick to a fabulous looking chook is to baste in the oil at the bottom of the pan as you go. Doing this once or twice during the cook will ensure that your skin looks crisp and brown. If things are looking TOO brown, then cover the top of the chicken with alfoil.