Serve with a green salad to mop up all the herby, buttery juices.
Serves
Four to Five people
Ingredients
- 1 plump organic roasting chicken, weighing around 2kg
- 50g soft butter
- a couple of generous handfuls of fresh herbs, such as parsley, chives and marjoram, roughly chopped
- 1 garlic clove, crushed
- 1/2 glass of white wine
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Method
Heat your Esse up to the middle part of (Very Hot)
Remove the bird from the fridge at least an hour before cooking it, ideally two or three. Take off any string trussing from the chicken, place the bird in a roasting tin and spread out its legs from the body. Enlarge the opening of the cavity with your fingers, so hot air can circulate inside the bird.
Put the butter in a bowl, throw in the herbs and the garlic and season well with salt and pepper. Mix together with your fingers, then smear all over the chicken, outside and in.
Place in the centre of the hot oven and leave for 15 minutes (phase 1).
Then baste the chicken, remove the bird from the top oven and pour the wine into the tin (not over the bird) and roast the bird for another 35–50 minutes in the bottom oven.(phase 2), depending on its size. (A good test for doneness is to pierce that part of the bird where the thigh joins the breast; the juices released should run clear). Rest the bird on top of the ESSE with the plate tops closed. I find this the perfect spot to rest all roasted meats.
For a bigger bird, at the longer end of the cooking time, you may wish to protect the bird’s skin with buttered foil for, say, the first 20-30 minutes of phase 2.
Carve the bird in the tin, as untidily as you please, letting the slices fall into the buttery juices, then take the whole thing to the table so people can help themselves.
