Sweet Spice Roast Chicken

Roasting a chicken isn't a hard task, but it's always good to have a few tasty variations up the sleeve to give variety.  I cooked this up for a Sunday evening.  It's easy enough for an ordinary meal while your pursuing weekend activities, tasty enough for entertaining with a casual dinner; a recipe for when you have plenty of cooking time but are short on preparation time, let's face it, that can be any time.

1 Chicken (Obviously)

Stuffing

Olive oil

1 ½ tbs Balsamic vinegar

1 ½ tbs Soy sauce

30ml sweet vermouth

Generous dash of chilli flakes

1 tsp mixed herbs

½ tsp cumin

½ tsp 5 spice

1 apple, finely sliced

6-8 Kalamata olives, pitted whole

2 cloves garlic, diced finely

1 slice raisin toast, roughly chopped

½ handful parsley, finely chopped

6-8 fine slices of butter

black pepper

*The quantities listed here are for a small chicken, you could adjust these as needed for a bigger, or multiple birds.

Preheat oven to 190 C.

Begin with a generous slug of oil in a mixing bowl, to this add all the stuffing ingredients, apart from the butter and mix well. Toss the butter through last as this is intended to melt through in the cooking process. The mix should be moist to slightly wet, If it is too dry add a little water or wine.

Stuff the chicken and then rub the outside with a little more olive oil, salt and pepper. Transfer to a baking dish and cover with foil.  The foil will hold the moisture in and maximise flavour infusion.

Cooking time is some 2+ hrs, give the bird 15min at 190 then turn the oven back to 155 C. After 1¾ hrs approx remove the foil and allow the chicken to colour for ½hr. Remove from the oven when golden. Keep an eye on things at this stage, as browning time may vary.

Remove the chicken from the pan and place in a warm spot, reduce the juices to make a lovely jus.  The beauty of the relatively slow oven is that the meat stays tender and doesn't dry out, so this really is a low stress recipe allowing you to cook another dish, do the housework or entertain friends. I'd suggest serving with with your favourite roast vegetables and light greens. The versatility is such that a salad would equally suit as an accompaniment.