The Secret Trick To Cooking The Perfect Roast Chicken
There is a persistent myth that cookbooks, particularly those from famous restaurants, are full of white lies; that the recipes are never quite the same as in the places they originate. The supposition is that by changing an ingredient or by withholding some small but significant detail, the chef will protect their creation so that no one else will ever make it as well as he or she does. It is nonsense, of course. But with high-profile controversies like The River Café's Chocolate Nemesis recipe (many complained that the cookbook was wrong; Ruth Rogers and Rose Gray insist that any failing was due to user error) culinary conspiracy theorists will continue to point the finger.
In my experience, the opposite is true. Chefs are generous types and always seem keen to pass on tricks-of-the-trade. I struggled for years, for example, to get my boiled eggs just right. I want my yolk to be very runny, but I hate it when the white is still transparent and wobbly, with the viscosity and appearance of snot. I had never found a foolproof way of achieving consistently good results until I came across Simon Hopkinson's method. He requires that you use a saucepan with a glass lid. You put the eggs into the pan with cold water, and when it starts to boil, you remove the pan from the heat. Keeping the lid on, you wait for three-and-a-half minutes, and then take them out. Perfect soft-boiled eggs, every time.
Which brings me, in a chicken-and-egg sort of way, to this recipe: roast chicken. When the weather turns cold, we want warming comfort food, and this dish always fits the bill. It was only recently, however, that I realised I'd been doing it wrong for years. It was the chef Florence Knight who pointed out the error of my ways.
"Always roast a chicken upside down," she told me. By putting the bird in the oven with the breast at the bottom, legs at the top, all the juices run through the chicken, into the breast, keeping the roast deliciously moist. It was a revelation. You'll also find you don't need gravy, just a decent mound of crispy roast potatoes.
Upside down roast chicken
Ingredients
• 1 free-range chicken, about 1.5kg
• 2kgs Maris Piper potatoes
• 1 lemon
• 1 large bunch mixed herbs: thyme, oregano, sage
• Large handful rosemary, leaves picked off
• Olive oil
• 2 heaped tbspns goose fat
• Flaky sea salt
• Black pepper
Method
1. Peel the potatoes and cut them into large bite-sized pieces. Boil in a large pan of salted water for about 5mins until just starting to soften. Drain into a large colander and let them stand for 5mins. Shake the colander vigorously to bash up the potato edges. Pre-heat the oven to 200˚C.
2. Rub the chicken all over with olive oil and season generously with salt and pepper. Cut the lemon in half and stuff it into the cavity, then plug with the mixed herbs. Place a large roasting tray on the bottom shelf of the oven and then put the chicken directly onto the middle shelf, breast-side down.
3. Roast for 30mins then turn. At the same time, put goose fat into the roasting tray and, when smoking, add potatoes. Coat well before returning to the oven.
4. Roast the chicken for a further 30mins. Next, remove the chicken, placing it breast up, onto a board and loosely cover with foil.
5. Turn the oven up to 225˚C. Give the tray with the potatoes in a shake, adding a scatter of salt and the rosemary leaves, and roast for a further 15mins while the chicken rests. With a sharp carving knife, distribute the meat evenly among four plates. Serve with the golden potatoes.
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