First Catch Your Chicken

From beginning preparation to eating you're looking at around 2 hours (most of this of course is spent drinking wine and waiting for things to cook so don't be too concerned). This will serve four with leftover chicken for sandwiches.

1 free range organic chicken size 16 (no your bog standard prison camp grade chook will not suffice please stop buying them immediately, thankyou)



Cut 1 or 2 (depending on size) juicy lemons in half and then cut the halves into four pieces. Mix with 6 cloves of peeled garlic, cut in half if they are large, 6 fresh sage leaves, 2 tablespoons of roughly chopped flat leafed parsley and some fresh thyme. Fill the cavity of the chicken with the mixture and squeeze the juice of a lemon over the chicken. Grind over sea salt and fresh black pepper.
Place the chicken in a large roasting dish lower down in the oven and add 2 tablespoons of water to the dish. Cook in a preheated oven at 180C for 30 minutes.

While the chicken is cooking peel potatoes and cut them up, after the chicken has been in the oven for 30 minutes put the potatoes in the same oven dish and cook for a further 30 minutes.

Peel kumara, carrots etc and place in a second roasting dish with yams and parsnips. Spray with a little oil. Place on a higher rack in the oven and leave to cook for around 40 minutes or until done. Turn the veges once or twice.
Heat up or make gravy from scratch (ugghhh). We used Cambells chicken gravy which comes as a ready to serve liquid in a box you just have to heat it. Steam some greens and serve.