One Pot Cooking: Roast Chicken

Andalucía, Spain's largest and most southern region, is one of the main places I grew up. My English mother and Belgian step-father live in a typical white Spanish village, whose surrounding hills are abloom with all sorts of flora, including wild thyme.

When I lived in London, I could bring some home with me, wrapped tightly in a plastic supermarket bag to keep it fresh for as long as possible. Now that I live in the US, international wildlife restrictions apply, so I have to buy my cultivated thyme in a supermarket these days.

I love this roast chicken recipe for its Mediterranean influence of flavours. I usually make it with thyme to remind me of home, but you could also use rosemary. Use the whole sprig of the fresh herbs - if you pull the leaves off first your mouth will end up with annoying bits. Or, as in the case of rosemary, little woody needles!

Although my mother cooks instinctively (she declares she's never made the same recipe twice) she must be credited with the following roast chicken recipe; not one to waste a single scrap of food, the idea to make a stock out of the carcass is my step-father's.


Ingredients

• 1 whole chicken, giblets removed, rinsed under kitchen tap
• 1 large onion, roughly chopped
• 2 potatoes, peeled and sliced into discs about 0.5" thick
• 6 carrots or other root vegetables, e.g. parsnips, sliced into 1" lengths (and, in the case of parsnips 0.5" thick)
• Sprig of fresh herbs, e.g. thyme, rosemary
• 1 unwaxed lemon, scrubbed and then cut into half
• Glug of liquid - it doesn't matter whether it's beer, wine, orange juice or something else
  

Place the chicken into a 2" deep baking dish and drizzle olive oil over it, rubbing it into all the creases. Season with salt and pepper.

Surround it with the onions, potatoes and vegetables. Season with salt and pepper.

Add fresh herbs and lemon.
Herbs: on the chicken, at either end, and stuff some into the chicken too;
Lemon: squeeze the juice all over the chicken and veggies, and stuff the chicken with the two halves

Drizzle more oil over everything, and then add the liquid - just a glug. The oil and liquid combine with the chicken juices to form a gravy!

Mix the veggies around to coat them too

Bung in the oven for 75-90mins at 220°C (425°F) - every oven is different, so you may have to adjust temp/ time. You'll know when the chicken is done because you should be able to pull off a leg easily.

Serve and enjoy!

Frugalista Tip:

• When the chicken is nothing but a carcass, you can make it into a stock for soups and other dishes - fry celery, carrots and onion with salt, pepper and herbs in a cooking pot, and then add chicken carcass - the whole thing. Add water, bring to a boil and simmer for a few hours. Strain, and refrigerate when cool until chilled, whereupon you may skim off the fat if you are so inclined. Ta-da!