Roasting a Chicken in Oven

Who doesn't love a chicken roast or roasted chicken? It is a perfect dish for parties, small get together or even for Sunday lunches. There are several scrumptious roast chicken recipes that can be prepared at home easily. Here is a simple recipe of making roasted chicken with simple herbs.

Best Way to Roast a Chicken

Before actually roasting a frozen chicken in oven, you need to thaw it in the refrigerator overnight. It should be noted that chicken should never be thawed outside the refrigerator or it can lead to infections. Secondly, while cooking roast chicken, the oven should be pre-heated, and you should stuff the chicken only a couple of minutes before you roast it. This way, the stuffing will maintain its taste.

Ingredients

• 3lb 5oz of free chicken
• 1 lemon
• A small bunch fresh thyme stalks
• 1-2 cloves of garlic
• 2fl oz of olive oil
• Sea salt to taste
• Freshly ground black pepper to taste

Method of Preparation

• Initially you need to preheat the oven to 400 degree F
• Remove the chicken giblets from the chicken cavity. Cut the lemon in half and place it inside the cavity of the chicken.
• Now put a few leaves and stalks of thyme into the slit of the chicken.
• In a bowl, add olive oil, remaining thyme leaves and stalks, and crushed cloves of garlic. Mix it in a blender until it is homogeneous.
• Now place the chicken on roasting tray and spoon this flavored oil all over the chicken, inside out. You can pour the remaining directly on the top the chicken.
• Sprinkle salt and freshly ground pepper over the chicken for seasoning.
• Now the chicken should be covered with a foil loosely and roasted in the preheated oven for 30 minutes.
• After the prescribed time, reduce the temperature of the oven to 320-350 degree F, remove the foil and cook for another 30 minutes.
• The color of the chicken will turn golden brown when is it cooked. In order to confirm whether it is completely cooked or not, you can pierce the chicken in the thickest part (thigh) with a skewer. If the juices run clear, the chicken is cooked!
• Now remove the chicken from the oven, cover in a foil and let it to rest for 5-10 minutes.
• You can heat the pan juices again over the gas / burner.
• Take the chicken out of the foil and carve / cut it. Pour the pan juices on top of the chicken and your oven-roasted chicken is ready to serve!

This is the simplest and easiest way of roasting a chicken in oven at home. Now, if you want to slow roast a chicken, so as to make it more tender and soft, then you need to follow the same initial procedure of seasoning the chicken. Later, you need to follow the following steps to make a slow oven roasted chicken:

• Preheat the oven initially to 400-450 degrees F and cook for 15-20 minutes. This will make the skin of the chicken crispy.
• Now, lower the temperature to 250 degrees F and cook the chicken for an hour.
• Lastly, increase the temperature again to 400-450 degrees F and cook for 15-20 minutes.

With these methods, I hope you must have realized that making roast chicken is quite easy. So, if planning the next house party, you know what your special main course will be! Good luck!