Roast Chicken With Rosemary Recipe

• 1 x 2kg free-range Organic Chicken
• Sea Salt (to taste)
• Black Pepper according to taste (freshly ground)
• 2kg Potatoes (peeled and chopped into golf sized balls)
• 1 large Lemon
• 1 whole bulb of Garlic ( broken into cloves)
• A handful of fresh Thyme
• 4 tbsp Olive Oil
• A handful of fresh Rosemary Sprigs (leaves picked)
• 8 rashers of Streaky Bacon (smoked)

• Rub the chicken both inside and outside with a mixture of freshly ground black pepper and sea salt this really enhances the taste of the chicken. Preferably do this in the morning and cover this and keep it in the fridge to refrigerate until you are ready to cook it for lunch or dinner.
• Preheat oven to 190ºC/375ºF/gas 5.
• Boil a large pan of salted water. Add the potatoes, whole lemon and garlic cloves and cook for 12 minutes. Now drain and allow it to steam dry for 1 minute to make potatoes crispier.
• Remove the lemon and the garlic cloves and toss the potatoes in the pan while still hot so their outside gets chuffed and fluffy.
• In the meanwhile carefully stab the hot lemon about 10 times.
• Remove the chicken from the fridge; pat it with a kitchen paper and rub all over with olive oil. Push the garlic cloves, the whole lemon and the thyme into the cavity.
• In a roasting tray cook the chicken in the pre-heated oven for around 45 minutes.
• Remove it on a plate. Use fat that has cooked out of the chicken onto the roasting tray to coat the potatoes along with some rosemary leaves.
• Now shake the tray of potatoes to evenly spread the potatoes and then make some space in the centre and put the chicken back in.
• Lay the rashers of bacon the chicken breast and cook for 45 minutes or until the chicken and the potatoes are nice and golden.
• If you like it then remove the bacon from the chicken and crumble it over the potatoes.
• Now remove the lemon and garlic from the inside of the chicken. Squeeze the garlic flesh out of the skin and mash it to smear it all over the chicken. Discard the lemon and rosemary and carve the chicken at the table.