Roast Chicken with Lemon & Thyme

Top birds nothing is better than a comforting roast chicken, flavours of thyme, lemon, garlic and sea salt. A meal that evokes memories of my childhood. The little gem lettuce brings a wonderful spring-like feel to the recipe. 

Serves 4

1 x medium free-range chicken
Cornish sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
4 tbsps olive oil
1 lemon
1 bunch thyme 
100g softened butter
4 cloves of garlic (skin on)
2 little gem lettuce, cut into quarters 
1kg parboiled potatoes

Preheat the oven to 180’C fan

Method

Wash and pat chicken dry. Season it. Ease the skin back from the flesh with your hands. All you are trying to do is make some room for the thyme and butter under the skin. Then rub the skin with the thyme butter and a splash of olive oil. Season well with sea salt and black pepper. Use the butter paper to cover the breasts for the first part of cooking. Halve a lemon and stick the two halves in the cavity along with garlic cloves and extra thyme.

Place the chicken in the oven after 30 mins remove the butter paper and baste the chicken with its juices and continue cooking for about one hour. Finally, 15 minutes from the end of the cooking add the parboiled potatoes and little gem around the chicken so they will colour and absorb all the flavours. Set aside to rest.