Roast Chicken
As promised, the perfect way to cook a chicken and it's as easy as Madonna in the 80's.
A few simple steps and no fussy preparation is needed.
1) Preheat your oven. This is a prerequisite. ALWAYS preheat your oven no matter what you are cooking in the oven. 160 c (around 320f or gas mark 3)
2) Place the chicken in a decent sized oven proof pan and prepare it accordingly. I baste it it in a little warmed up butter and salt and pepper. Nothing more. A knob of butter over the breast and more inside the cavity.
3) Wrap the chicken in cooking foil and cook for one hour without disturbance.
4) Remove the foil, baste the whole chicken with the juices in the pan and put back in the oven.
5) Cook the chicken for another hour basting it every 20 minutes with the juices.
6) Remove the chicken and cut into the breast near to the edge of the pan as possible and see if it the juices run clear. For a small to decent sized Medium chicken (2 to 6 pounds) it will almost always be cooked already but if not check back every 5 mins or so.
7) Once cooked, remove from oven, cover with foil and leave for 10 mins and then remove foil and allow to cool.
8) Perfect Chicken!
It all boils down to this: Cook for an hour covered in foil (to allow the inside to be cooked) and one hour without the foil ( to get a decent colour and not dry out).
A simple roast chicken can be a thing of beauty if you do it right and if you can't then you really are a ****wit.