This chicken recipe is a French-inspired garlic and herb roast is bursting with flavour and is perfect with a mustard and white wine gravy for an extra-delicious Sunday lunch.
Finely grated zest and juice of 1 lemon, reserving the lemon halves
2 level tbsp each freshly chopped flat-leafed parsley and tarragon
1
medium egg yolk
For the chicken
1
(3lb) organic chicken
2
garlic cloves
1
onion, cut into wedges
2 level sea salt
2 level course ground black pepper
4
sprigs each fresh parsley and tarragon
2
bay leaves
50
(2oz) butter, cut into cubes
For the gravy
200
(7fl oz) white wine
1 level Dijon mustard
450
(¾ pint) hot chicken stock
25
(1oz) butter mixed with 25g (1oz) plain flour
You'll also need
2
skewers
Approx 1m fine string
Directions
Step 1
Preheat the oven to 190 °C (170 °C fan oven) mark 5. To make the stuffing, melt the butter in a pan and fry the onion and garlic for 5-10min until soft. Cool, then add the remaining ingredients, stirring in the egg yolk last. Season well.
Step 2
Discard any string tied around the chicken, then wipe the chicken clean with kitchen towel and discard paper. Put it on a board with the parson's nose facing upwards, then put the garlic onion, lemon halves and half the salt, pepper and herb springs into the cavity.
Step 3
Lift the loose skin at the next and fill cavity with stuffing. Turn on to its breast and pull neck flap over the opening to cover the stuffing. Rest the wing tips across it and secure the flap with a skewer so it sits lengthways down the backbone.
Step 4
Push a skewer through the two wings. Tie one end of the string to the loop of this skewer, then turn chicken over. Pull the string up towards and around legs, then back down to the skewer in the neck flap. Pull string to tighten, then secure it.
Step 5
Put chicken on a rack in a roasting tin. Season, then add the remaining herbs and the bay leaves. Dot with the butter and roast for 1hr 20min (or 20min per 450g/11b, plus 20min), basting halfway through, or until the juices run clear when a knife is inserted into the thigh.
Step 6
Remove and cover with foil. To make gravy, pour fat from tin, leaving about 3tbsp, put over a high heat, add wine and boil for 2min. Add mustard and stock; bring back to boil. Gradually whisk in knobs of butter mixture until smooth. Season and serve with sliced chicken.
An experienced and highly skilled team of food writers, stylists and digital content producers, the Good Housekeeping Cookery Team is a close-knit squad of food obsessives. Cookery Editor Emma Franklin is our resident chilli obsessive and barbecue expert, who spends an inordinate amount of time on holidays poking round the local supermarkets seeking out new and exciting foods. Senior Cookery Writer Alice Shields is a former pastry chef and baking fanatic who loves making bread and would have peanut butter with everything if she could. Her favourite carb is pasta, and our vibrant green spaghetti is her weeknight go-to. Lover of all things savoury, Senior Cookery Writer Grace Evans can be found eating crispy corn and nocellara olives at every opportunity, and will take the cheeseboard over dessert any time (though she cannot resist a slice of tres leches cake). With a wealth of professional kitchen know-how, culinary training and years of experience between them, they are all dedicated to ensuring every Good Housekeeping recipe is the best it can be, so you can trust they’ll work (and if they don’t – we’ll have the answer for why*) every time (*90% of the time the answer is: “buy an separate oven thermometer”!).
