Sunday belongs to us.
There's a sacred ritual to roasting a chicken on a Sunday afternoon. It's the kind of cooking that doesn't ask for your constant attention but rewards you for showing up. Two hours from start to finish, most of it unattended, just the oven doing its quiet work while you read the paper or potter about.
I started with a good bird — 1.8kg, brought to room temperature because cold chicken roasts unevenly. Into the cavity went half a lemon, a few smashed garlic cloves, and a handful of thyme sprigs. Not for flavour as much as for aromatics, for filling the house with the smell of home.
Then the important bit: butter under the skin. I worked my fingers gently between the skin and the breast meat, creating pockets, then smeared softened butter everywhere I could reach. This is what gives you that golden, crackling skin. Salt and pepper over the outside, a drizzle of olive oil.
Into a hot oven it went — 220°C for twenty minutes to get the skin started, then down to 180°C for the long, slow roast. Halfway through, I added potatoes, carrots, and onion wedges to the tray, letting them bathe in the chicken drippings.
The result? Skin like amber glass, meat so tender it fell from the bone. I made a simple pan gravy with the drippings, carved at the table, and served it with nothing fancy. Just good roast vegetables and the quiet satisfaction of a Sunday well spent.
