Recipe for Lemon roast chicken – serves 4

A good roast chicken needs a really good bird and loving basting. This Simon Hopkinson variation I find excellent, as the lemon juice gives a lovely sauce.

Ingredients

• A roasting chicken
• 1 lemon
• Olive oil
• One clove of garlic cut into slivers
• 2 or 3 sprigs of rosemary
• Salt & pepper


Method

• Cut several slits in chicken and tuck in a sliver of garlic and a leaf of rosemary into each
• Squeeze the juice of half the lemon over the chicken and put the used lemon inside it with a sprig of rosemary
• Pour olive oil over chicken and salt & pepper it
• Place in a pre-heated oven at 200C and cook for one and a half hours basting regularly.
• 15 minutes before the end squeeze the juice of the remaining lemon half over bird and put some rosemary leaves on bird
• When cooked, take bird out to carve
• Boil up juices on stove. Pour a little over each serving and put any remaining in a sauce boat