flour & eggs

Perfectly Roasted Chicken with Sage and Garlic served with Hassleback Spuds

There is an art to getting a roast chicken quite right. So many times have I sat at a dinner table to a dry old piece of meat that is neither use nor ornament. In fact, I probably wouldn’t feed such a desiccated disaster to my pooch. 

The ingredients used here are timeless and classic. I think no chicken should be without sage (unless of course you are doing a curry or something equally as fragrant) and neither should it be without the sweet pang of garlic. 

The hassleback potatoes are named after a hotel in Sweden that first served them. These are my recipe and so probably don’t conform to the conventional restaurant standard; but home cooking should be limitless. 

ingredients

• 1 medium roasting chicken, preferably organic, with skin on
• 50g butter
• 10 fresh sage leaves
• 1 clove garlic
• 1 bulb of garlic
• 12-16 small-medium new potatoes
• tbsp olive oil
• sea salt flakes
• freshly ground pepper

You will also need a wooden spoon, a sharp knife, a roasting tin that will happily accommodate your chicken, with room for spuds, and some aluminium foil. 

method

1. Preheat the oven to 220 degrees Celsius. 
2. Remove any trimmings from the chicken and place into your sink and wash in cold water. Ensure that you wash (and dry) the body cavity. 
3. Into the butter mix the sage and finely chopped garlic clove.
4. Using your finger tips pinch the skin of the chicken all over the breast, until sufficiently relaxed to allow you to put your finger in between the breast meat and skin. This does take a little practice and patience, but it is worth it. 
5. Divide the flavoured butter into two and roll into two little fat sausages. Insert these under the chicken skin (again in between skin and breast meat), and flatten down as best you can. Chop the bulb of garlic in half and insert this into the body cavity. Place the chicken into the roasting dish.
6. For the potatoes, place them one at a time into the bowl of the wooden spoon, and using the sharp knife cut down each potato along the length, allowing the wooden spoon to prevent the blade from completely slicing each spud. Each potato will probably need around 8 slices. Place these into the roasting tin, around the chicken. 
7. Drizzle everything, chicken and spuds, with olive oil and then sprinkle a good 5 pinches of salt and pepper over everything. Cover the dish with foil and place into the oven a roast for 40 minutes.
8. After 40 minutes, remove the roasting tin, and reduce the heat to 180. Remove the foil from the tin, and place the tin back into the oven for another 30-40 minutes, or until the chicken is cooked. You can tell if it is by using either a meat thermometer inserted into the leg of the chicken, or if the juices run clear when you insert a skewer into the thigh. 
9. The potatoes should be burnished and bronzed. If they need a little longer, remove them from the roasting dish and place into a clean one and back into the oven for 10 minutes more. This time will allow you to cover your chicken with foil and leave to rest a little, but don’t worry if you don’t need to cook your spuds anymore, as the chicken will be just perfect as it is.