Recipe: Empire Roast Chicken (Jamie Oliver's Recipe)

Essentially, I was bored of the normal lemon + garlic roast chicken, so once day I googled roast chicken recipes and stumbled upon Jamie Oliver's Empire Roast Chicken. I had almost 95% of the ingredients so proceeded to try it out. The first time I made it, I only marinaded it for 15 minutes, but the second time I made the chicken, I marinaded it before I went to work and cooked it around 10 hours after marinading it. The several hours of marinading really did the trick as the chicken was more juicy and the flavors burst through the chicken.

Ingredients:

1 whole chicken - roughly 1.6 kg ++

1 heaped tablespoon fresh ginger grated or chopped finely - roughly 1.5 inch

1 heaped tablespoon garlic, grated or chopped finely - roughly 3 cloves

1 fresh chilli, grated (I couldn't grate it so I just roughly chopped it)

1 heaped teaspoon turmeric powder (I also added fresh grated turmeric)

1 heaped teaspoon garam masala

1 heaped teaspoon ground coriander - I didn't add but I'm sure it would be a great addition

1 heaped teaspoon ground cumin 

1 heaped tablespoon tomato puree

2 heaped tablespoon natural yoghurt

1 whole lemon, zested + juice

Salt + pepper season

Basically chuck everything into a plastic bag, massage all the ingredients under the chicken skin and leave to marinade at least 20 minutes. Ideally overnight.

Cooking Method

1. Preheat oven 220°C, line oven tray with foil/ greaseproof paper
2. Add cubed potatoes (scrubbed and washed, salted), then add your marinated chicken
3. Add chicken on top of potato
4. Place in chicken  in oven, reduce heat to 200°C.
5. Cook for at least 50 minutes in the oven. Once cooked (pierce drumstick with a knife, the juice should run clear), take chicken out of oven and leave to rest for at least 15 minutes.

Notes: You can leave the chicken uncovered for 20 minutes, then once the skin starts browning, cover it with foil whilst it cooks.

I usually serve the chicken with buttered + cheese naan bread/ toasts, and yoghurt. You can make raita (yoghurt + lemon + cucumber + coriander) to accompany the chicken if preferred, but the juices from the chicken will make for a good dipping sauce alone.

There might be leftovers, perfect for a quick casserole dinner the following night or some chicken sandwiches to bring to office the next morning.

Pst: For Malaysians, it literally tastes like tandoori chicken hahaha.

Left: Imaan stealing bits of the rested chicken.

Right: Enjoying the naan bread sprinkled with Italian cheese + garlic + butter

Right: Too tired after her dinner. With the turmeric from the chicken staining her pyjamas.