I love a good home made roast chicken. It’s quite easy to make and the best part is there’s no right or wrong. Everyone have their own formula for succulent roast chicken. For me, a good roast chicken should never be over marinated. I prefer to be able to still enjoy the fresh sweetness of the chicken.

It might be easy to make but it doesn’t make it less tedious. First thing is to CLEAN the chicken. Don’t think that just because you bought it nicely wrapped from the supermarket means it’s clean. Remove all feathers and all debris sticking to the skin. If you look closely, the yellowish ‘skin-like’ debris is usually under the wings or along the inner thigh. Once it’s clean, I like to give the chicken a good salt scrub. It’s sort of like exfoliating the skin. Rinse off the salt after that. You will definitely feel a big difference to the skin. It’s so much smoother.

After that, pat dry the chicken.

Prepare separate small bowls of salt, pepper, herbs,  5 cloves of crushed garlic and 2 bay leaves. For the herbs, I just throw in a mix of dried herbs like rosemary, thyme, oregano and basil. (It’s quite flexible. You can put in anything you like. Personally, I will not skip thyme. It goes amazingly well with chicken!)

Grab the salt with your 5 fingers and sprinkle it all over the chicken evenly. Always sprinkle it higher than 15cm to get the even spread. Do the same with pepper. Ensure you salt and pepper well the inside of the chicken as well. Next, I rub the dry herbs on the palm of my hand first to release the fragrance and oil before rubbing it onto the chicken. Remember the inside too! Throw in the crushed garlic into the chicken tummy. Stuff a lemon inside to hold the chicken’s shape which roasting at the same time releasing a beautiful aroma soaking into the chicken. Before you stuff the lemon, wash it really well and give the surface a good prick.

I thrust my chicken here because it looks so much prettier and inviting. 😉

The chefs on TV make it look so EASY. But, it’s not if it’s your first time. Don’t panic. Just make sure you manage to close the legs together to push up the breast, sort of like giving the chicken a wonderbra effect. LOL… 

I like to place the chicken on a bed of sliced onion. This way, the chicken skin will not stick to the bottom and or have a soggy look on the bottom. I like to cover the chicken and allow it to steam for a good 40 mins at 170 degreeC first. As you can see the chicken looks so moist here.

Then, I remove the cover and let it roast for another 30 mins  to allow the surface to dry and the skin to slowly turn golden. When the skin is sufficiently dried out, I’ll lightly brush a layer of butter all over the chicken. This gives it a beautiful shiny look. I’ll roast it again for another 20 mins at 200 degree C.

Tada… my home made roast chicken.

Oh… one more thing. Do not throw away the lemon. Slice it to half and squeeze the juice out together with the roasting juice. It is AWESOME !!!

Please note that the cooking time varies depending on your chicken size. My chicken here was about 1.2kg. I used the Kami Sakura chicken which is about RM20 /bird. It’s a bit on the expensive side. But, I like the taste and texture of this chicken… 🙂 The chicken is not raise in cage but not entirely free-range. You can read more about this chicken online.