Maggie Beer's Roast Chicken with Garlic and Verjuice

Last Friday, (2.5.2011) Maggie Beer gave some MasterChef contestants a class on making roast chicken with roast garlic. It looked really good, nice golden brown, very moist and tender, melts in the mouth, including the chicken breast!. Here are the notes I took.

1 large size range free chicken (2kg)
50ml olive oil
About 30 cloves garlic unpeeled (4 cloves peeled and chopped, the rest blanch in boiling water for 4 minutes)
About 1 tsp sea salt and pepper
125ml verjuice
125ml water
1 cup chicken stock
3 rosemary sprig
1 lemon, cut into half

Preheat oven to 200deg

Prepare chicken to be at room temperature (so that it cooks evenly).
Place chicken on a trivet/rack sitting on top of a shallow oven baking tray (5cm deep). (a deep oven tray would trap some heat at the bottom of the tray, distorting heat circulation throughout the chicken)
Massage into the skin of the chicken the olive oil and the chopped garlic, sprinkle with sea salt.
Stuff the rosemary and squeeze the lemon juice into chicken cavity, leave lemon in
(Note: The chopped garlic is my personal choice/addition to the recipe.)
Tucked the wing tips under the chicken, for even cooking.
Place chicken, breast side up on the rack.
Cover breast (from neck to bottom) with foil, leaving only the legs exposed. This protects the breast from overcooking/drying.


Bake in the oven for 40 minutes.
After 40 minutes. remove chicken from the oven.
Pour verjuice all over chicken.
Baste the chicken with the juice in the tray.
Shift foil, so that it now exposes the breast, cover the legs.
Place blanced garlic onto the oven tray.
Pour water into base of tray to prevent garlic from burning.
Return to oven, cook for 20 minutes.
Remove immediately from oven to rest chicken.

Remove foil and turn chicken upside down, ie breast facing down.
This "returns" the moisture in the chicken back into the breast keeping it moist.
Loosely cover (not wrap) the chicken with foil.
Let chicken rest for at least 20 minutes (40minutes preferred) in room temperature. I guess it depends on the season!
Chicken will continue to cook in own heat while resting.

To make the jus, pour all the pan juices from the baking dish into a small saucepan and add 1 cup of warm chicken stock, pour into a narrow serving jug, then refrigerate this while the chicken is resting. Just before serving, scoop away the fat that has risen to the top, warm the remaining jus.

Carve the chook, then pour over the jus and serve accompanied by the roasted garlic, parsnip and pear mash and salad.

Bon Appetite!