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Roast Chicken & Potatoes

  • 90g/3½oz butter softened
  • salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • 1 lemon
  • 1 x 1.75kg/3½lbs chicken
  • 4 large potatoes Maris Pipers or King Edwards, peeled
  • Bulb garlic broken into cloves in their skins
  • Olive oil enough to drizzle over your potatoes

  1. Preheat the oven to 220C/200C Fan/Gas 7.
  2. Place the chicken into a roasting tin and rub the butter all over the outside of the chicken keeping back a little to dot over the potatoes.
  3. Cut the potatoes into 4 to 6 pieces dependent on how big your potatoes are and nestle around the chicken and put garlic cloves in the gaps.Dot with remaining butter and a drizzle of olive oil.
  4. Cut the lemon in half and squeeze lemon all over the chicken and the potatoes then put the squeezed halves inside the cavity. Sprinkle salt and pepper all over the tin.
  5. Place the tin into the preheated oven. Roast for 15 minutes, then turn the heat down to 190C/170C Fan/Gas 5 and roast for a further 45 minutes, basting the chicken with the juices from the pan occasionally (you will need to add some time if your chicken is bigger).
  6. When the chicken is golden-brown and cooked through (pierce the chicken at the thickest part of the thigh - the juices should run clear or be at least 79C on an instant read thermometer), remove the tin from the oven and take the chicken from the tin onto a plate. Cover with foil and allow to rest.
  7. Turn the oven back up to 220C, stir the potatoes around in the juices and then put the tin back in the oven for at least 15 mins. You might want to add longer if you like them even crispier, its completely up to you.
  8. To serve, carve the chicken and pile the slices onto serving plates and dish up the potatoes (they made need a little extra salt), squeeze out any soft garlic remaining from the cloves around the chicken onto the slices.