Roast Chicken

Name: Roast Chicken
Yield: Serves 4–6
Ingredients: 3–4 lb / 1.35–1.80 kg. chicken; twist of lemon zest; handful of parsley stalks; freshly ground black pepper; bay leaf; salt; 1 oz / 30 g butter; 4 tbsp good dry white wine (optional)

Preparation info

Serves
4–6

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

The Times Cookbook

By Frances Bissell

Published 1995

About

The simplest of all chicken recipes, this is one of the best. Basting with butter produces a richly flavoured bird, with a burnished, appetizing skin.

Ingredients

3–4 lb / 1.35–1.80 kg. chicken
salt
freshly ground black pepper

Main course

Method

Remove excess fat from the body cavity of the chicken. Lightly season the bird inside and out, and put the bay leaf, lemon zest and parsley stalks inside the cavity. Carefully ease the skin away from the breast, and with your fingers spread the butter over the flesh under the skin. Place the bird on a rack in a roasting tin, lying it on one side of the breast, and pour over the wine, if using.