How I Roast Chicken for a Roast Chicken Dinner

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Succulent and tender chicken meat cooked with and surrounded by a delicious layer of Sage, Onion and Sausagemeat Stuffing. The chicken is infused with the flavours from the stuffing, whilst at the same time, it bastes the chicken with extra fat ensuring the meat is moist and tender, even though it may have been cooking for a couple of hours.

I already have quite a few different roast chicken recipes on this site, but this is how I always do my chicken for a traditional roast dinner. You know, when the weather outside is blowing a gale, the rain is lashing down and you are seeking complete comfort on your plate and a lazy afternoon cuddled up on the sofa watching a good film with a full tummy and the rest of a fabulous bottle of wine.

When you want soft, tender roast chicken, crispy roast potatoes, creamy, dreamy mashed potatoes, roast vegetables and some green vegetables all smothered in lashings of gravy. Emma and I love some stewed apple on the side with our roast – (chicken for me and nut roast for Emma) but Andrew and Charlotte think we are very strange and really would not!

This should most definitely be followed by some sweet comfort, although possibly a few hours later! My go to would be a hot, fresh Blackberry and Apple Crumble (any crumble in fact!) or indeed any fruit pies, with lashings of custard, cream or ice cream, whichever you prefer, or all three. To complete the picture, I think I would also have to include a little nap, most probably on the sofa, and usually and very frustratingly in the middle of the film!

I digress. Back to that chicken which started all this dreaming!

How to make Roast Chicken for a Roast Chicken Dinner

Collect all your ingredients together:

• 1 whole chicken, roughly 2 – 2.5kg in weight
• 1 quantity of Sage and Onion Sausagemeat Stuffing
• olive oil
• sea salt
• freshly ground black pepper

First of all, make the Sage and Onion Sausagemeat Stuffing:

Please see here for full recipe but in short, you need to blend together bread, onion, sage, sausagemeat and seasoning in a food processor. Quick, simple and so worth it!

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Stuff the Chicken:

We like a lot of stuffing in our chicken. If you are using a smaller chicken, you will definitely need less stuffing. If I buy a little chicken just for Andrew and me, say 1.4kg – 1.5kg, I would use half the stuffing. It freezes well, so I would make the whole amount and freeze the other half for another occasion.

1. I like to put a layer of stuffing between the skin of the chicken and the breast meat. To do this, use your hand to gently ease the skin from the meat and make space for the stuffing. You can use a spoon to do this but I have ripped the skin by mistake too many times, so I always use just my hand instead.
2. Stuff the area between the skin and the breast meat with around 1/3 of the stuffing. Gently ease it into the space using your hand, being careful not to rip the skin
3. Use your hands to pat the stuffing into a neat shape and to ensure it is roughly the same thickness over the breast.
4. Put the remaining stuffing inside the cavity of the chicken

(NB Should you be using a stuffing which does not contain the sausagemeat, do not put a layer between the skin and the breast meat. You may find it dries out your meat rather than basting it with extra flavours and fats.)

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Not a fan of stuffing?

If you would rather not use stuffing, try adding some seasoned butter and chopped fresh herbs in the layer between the skin and the breast meat. Simply separate the skin and the meat as shown above and smear the butter over the breast and under the skin. Make sure your butter is at room temperature, season with salt and freshly ground black pepper and chopped herbs to taste. You could use sage, tarragon, parsley, rosemary, thyme, chives, dill, whatever takes your fancy. You could even throw in a little crushed garlic.

Oil and Season the Chicken:

1. Use your hands to rub the olive oil all over your chicken making sure you oil the underside of the bird and get into all the creases and nooks and crannies.
2. At the same time make sure the flaps of skin are pulled over the stuffing in the cavity of the chicken.
3. Also ensure the skin covers and is pulled around the stuffing between the skin and the breast meat.
4. Grind over a generous portion of sea salt and black pepper.

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Roast the chicken:

When calculating cooking times, it is important you make sure you:

• allow time for the chicken to come to room temperature before cooking. This can take 30 minutes to an hour, depending on the size of the chicken and the ambient room temperature.
• also allow time for resting the chicken after it has been cooked. I usually rest a chicken for around 15 minutes.

Why should meat be cooked at room temperature?

When you cook meat, the muscles in the flesh contract and tighten when heated. The colder the muscles the more they will contract; this means it is harder for the heat to distribute evenly. By letting the meat come to room temperature before you cook it, the meat will cook more evenly and when cooked, it will be juicier. It can take between 30 – 60 minutes for fridge cold meat to reach room temperature, depending on its size and the ambient room temperature.

You also need time to rest the meat after cooking:

As the muscles of the meat contract and tighten when cooked, the juices are forced toward the surface of the meat and some will evaporate. (Which is why overcooked meat is dry.) Allowing the meat to rest after you have removed the heat source, means the muscles will relax and the juices can re-distribute throughout the meat. If you cut it immediately, you are in danger of losing some of these juices; your chicken may then be dry and the flavour from those gorgeous juices will be lost.

How long should you cook the chicken for?

The length of time a chicken takes to cook will depend on both its size and also the temperature of the oven. When calculating the weight of the chicken, it is very important to add the weight of the Sage, Onion and Sausagemeat Stuffing as well. The stuffing recipe given here weighs approximately 700g, depending on the size of the onion you use.

• Preheat oven to Fan Oven 180°C/200°C/400°F/Gas 6
• Cover the chicken and stuffing with foil and cook for 20 minutes.
• Turn the oven down to Fan Oven 160°C/180°C/350°F/Gas 4
• Continue to cook for 30 minutes per kg.
• (For those working in imperial measures, 1 kg is 2.2lbs and 100g is 3.5oz)
• 30 minutes before the end of cooking time, remove the foil and continue to cook so the skin browns and becomes crispy.

The chicken in the photographs was 2.3kg and the stuffing was 700g which comes to 3kg in total. So I:

1. cooked the chicken with the foil on for 20 minutes at the higher temperature.
2. continued to cook at the lower temperature for 1 hour.
3. I then removed the foil and continued to cook for a further 30 minutes.
4. Total cook time therefore was 1 hour and 50 minutes.

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To check the chicken is cooked:

Pull the leg away from the bird slightly and skewer into breast flesh behind the leg. Any juices coming out of the bird should be clear and the meat should be opaque. If you see any pinkness or blood, cook for a further 10 – 15 minutes. If you use a meat thermometer, the internal temperature of the meat should read 165°F or 75°C.

Make the Gravy:

1. If you can remove any of the fat sitting on top of the delicious gubbins in the pan, do so. The amount you have will depend on the chicken and the sausages you use. You need some fat for the gravy so you do not need to be too precious about it.
2. Add 4 tablespoons of plain/all-purpose flour to the pan and mix thoroughly. I use a small balloon whisk.
3. Add the vegetable or potato water or stock and bring to a gentle simmer stirring all the time. (My favourite is using the potato water and if I need more, I use either the water from cooking other vegetables or some stock.) Cook for 4 – 5 minutes stirring regularly and scraping up all the gorgeous sticky bits from the base of the pan.
4. Strain the gravy into a saucepan and cook until you achieve the consistency you seek. Some people like thick gravy and others a thinner sauce, go with whatever you like. If it is too thick, add some extra vegetable water.
5. Taste and adjust the seasoning and transfer to a gravy boat for serving. (NB Do not season your gravy until you have tasted it – remember the chicken, sausagemeat and vegetable water have all been seasoned. You may even find it does not need any extra salt and pepper but always check.)

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Carve and Serve your Roast Chicken:

Just look at that delicious layer of stuffing on top of the breast meat. Yum, yum, yum. (NB the pink is where Andrew cut through bone and not under-cooked meat!)

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Serve with:

Potatoes and vegetables which you have roasted alongside the chicken and an amazing bottle of Californian Ramey Chardonnay from the Russian River Valley!

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Made this recipe?

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