Roast Chicken with Lemon and Thyme

Ingredients

• 1.6 kg free-range chicken
• 60 g softened butter
• 1 lemon, halved
• a small bunch of thyme
• 1 whole head of garlic, halved across
• 2 onions, thickly sliced
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• flaky sea salt

Method

1. Salt it early

   Take the chicken out of the fridge an hour before, pat it bone dry and salt it all over, including inside the cavity. Dry skin is crisp skin; a wet bird steams.

   1 h

2. Butter and stuff

   Push most of the butter under the breast skin, rub the rest over the outside, and put the lemon, thyme and garlic in the cavity.

3. Build a trivet

   Sit the bird on the sliced onions in a roasting tin and trickle over the oil. The onions lift it out of its juices and become the base of the gravy.

4. Roast hot, then moderate

   Roast at 220°C for fifteen minutes to set the skin, then drop to 180°C for the rest. It is done when the juices from the thickest part of the thigh run clear.

   1 h 15 min

5. Rest properly

   Rest for at least twenty minutes, loosely covered. Carve it straight from the oven and the juices run out onto the board instead of staying in the meat.

   20 min