Roast Chicken with Lemon and Rosemary Roast Potatoes - J.O.

Here's another roast chicken recipe, this time it's Jamie Oliver's. I like to roast chicken because it requires little prepraration time and you can just leave the chicken in the oven for at least an hour and not bother about it.

Jamie Oliver says to use a free range organic chicken but since I can't get any organic chicken, I've used the normal chicken from the market. I'm sure it would have made a great difference in taste and texture :)

Here's what I did:

• 1 chicken about 1.5kg

• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Clean and pat dry the chicken, then marinate chicken inside and out with a generous amount or sea salt and ground black pepper. Leave in the fridge for about 4-6 hours

• 3 big Russet potaotoes - peeled and chopped to bite sized chunks

•1 large lemon - washed

•1 whole bulb of garlic - broken into cloves

Bring a pot of salted water to a boil, then add in the potatoes, garlic, and lemon. Boil for 12 minutes. "Drain and allow to steam dry for 1 minute, then remove the lemon and garlic. Toss the potatoes in the pan while still hot so their outsides get chuffed up and fluffy – this will make them lovely and crispy when they roast." (direct from Jamie's instructions)

Next stab the lemon about 10 times and stuff it into the chicken along with the garlic and a handful of fresh thyme.

Pat dry the chicken with paper towels then rub with olive oil. Roast the chicken in preheated oven of 190°C for 45 minutes.

•few dash of dried rosemary
•8 rashers of smoked streaky bacon

I couldn't get fresh rosemary so I used dried rosemary instead. It sure made a lot of difference aroma wise.

After 45 minutes, remove chicken to a plate and toss the boiled potatoes and rosemary leaves in the roasting tin. Then place the chicken back onto the tin surrounded by the tossed potatoes. Lay the bacon in single layer covering the chicken breast. Roast for another 50minutes.

I covered the wing tips with foil to avoid burning them

Note: My chicken and potatoes came out not brown enough... so I increased the temperature to 210°C and roasted them for another 20 minutes. I kept the bones for making soup the next day and the chicken breasts for sandwiches :)