Recipe number three.

I’m gonna start this by giving my deepest, sincerest apologies for the lack of photo. I mean, it’s a horror really. I know you all love my photography so much, and I’ve let you all down. So sorry.

I didn’t want to take a picture of a half-eaten chicken, what kind of picture is that. Next time though, a picture will be taken, rest assured. Breath. Breath. In the mean time enjoy this shoddy snapchat of me being somewhat funny.

Alright, lets get into it.

I normally don’t have patience for long roasting recipes. But alas, working my way through the book I had to - besides, one of the next recipes has me roasting for three hours, pray for me.

But this was definitely worth the wait, I mean it was about an hour but still. I’m impatient.

On the plus side, cooking the stuffing meant I could eat it at the same time. Kept me to going.

Prep and cooking

I bought a free-range chicken for this and man was it much more pleasant to work with than normal chicken. None of the sliminess I’ve always experienced, especially whilst stuffing the cavity - it was great.

Cubing and quartering chorizo - now that’s a task and a half in itself. Getting rid of the skin was even worse though, that stuff is vacuumed on and impossible to take off cleanly.

Cooking the stuffing was pretty much a basic saute - as everything got added it slowly got more delicious. Best thing ever? There was loads of stuffing left-over after stuffing the chicken - that kept me going for the hour or so.

My sister got me a digital thermometer which I’d been eyeing up for way too long. Actually roasting was easy; just had to make sure I basted and stopping on-time so I didn’t end up with dry, stringy chicken - thanks to the thermometer.

The pan sauce went brilliantly with rice and helped keep the chicken moist when reheating. Actually felt somewhat like a bodybuilder eating the chicken and rice.

Taste

This was brilliant. I’ve never made a stuffed roast chicken before, nor really roasted many chickens before. With the thermometer I ended up with perfectly tender chicken. Absolutely no dryness - brilliance. The chicken lasted close to a week and tasted just as good every time I ate it.

The pan sauce wasn’t overly winey, and the thyme smelled and tasted somewhat of Christmas - or at least what I assume Christmas smells or tastes like. The stuffing, like I keep blabbering on about it, was absolutely divine. I ended up just scooping it out and eating it on it’s own. Haven’t really figured out how to eat stuffed chicken yet. Let alone elegantly.

Verdict

Little to fault really. Other than my impatience, which has nowt to do with the recipe itself.

I probably won’t be making this again for a while to be honest. It was great, but the effort and time is a bit long - I mean cooking other recipes sometimes takes longer, but it’s the act of waiting that gets me.

Freerange chicken was definitely the way to go, barring the whole environment thing which I’m not going to preach, it was just much more pleasant to cook with. The amount of fat on that bird was phenomenal, melting oh so decadently into the pan juices mmm.