Roast Chicken With Mushroom Sauce Recipe

How to make it

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• Take the bird out of the fridge 30 minutes before starting to prepare.
• Preheat the oven to Gas 6/200C/400F.
• Remove packaging. Undo trussing 'string'.
• Open out the legs and unfold the wings.
• Wash inside and out with cold water. Dry well with kitchen paper.
• Cut off the 'parson's nose', the lumps of fat just inside the vent, and the excess skin at the neck and vent.
• Weigh the trimmed chicken and calculate cooking time - don't take the label's word for it.
• Pinch the breast skin gently to loosen, taking care not to tear it.
• Put a lump of butter under the skin of the each breast, massaging it downwards and outwards to include the whole breast area.
• With the breast up, rub the skin of the bird all over with butter, including the crook of each wing. Fold the wings back up again.
• Sprinkle all over with the juice of the lemon, some salt and pepper, and a little sprinkle of dried thyme.
• Put the chicken breast down on a wire rack in a roasting tin.
• Stick the squeezed lemon halves into the cavity.
• Cover, either with a lid or some tin foil. Scrunch this down tightly to seal all round.
• Place tin so that the bird is in the centre of the oven.
• Cooking time is: 20 minutes per lb. PLUS another 20 minutes. A 5lb bird will take about 2 hours.
• 30 minutes before the end of cooking time, take out the chicken, uncover, turn the bird over breast up and sprinkle with a little more thyme. Put back in to brown, uncovered.
• Check for doneness:
• With a sharp knife, prise a leg away fom the body a little and have a peek into the joint for any sign of pinkness (this is the bit that takes longest to cook). If there is, it needs longer. Try another 10 minutes and look again. Alternately, use a meat thermometer. Insert at the start of cooking, between the leg and the body, NOT TOUCHING BONE. When the bird is done, it should register 75-80C/165-175F.
• When done, let the bird rest for 20 minutes or so, loosely tented with foil.
• For the sauce:
• In a pint jug, put the dried mushrooms.
• Pour over boiling water to cover (the mushrooms will swell up as they 'reconstitute'). Leave them for about half an hour. Drain them (reserve the soaking liquid), squeezing out as much moisture as possible. Chop them up very finely (I use the processor).
• To the soaking liquid, add enough chicken stock to make it up to 1 1/2 pints liquid.
• In a heavy frying pan, melt the butter.
• Add the shallot and fry gently until softened.
• Add the mushrooms and fry, stirring, for 2-3 minutes.
• In a saucepan, melt the second quantity of butter and add the flour. Cook gently on a low heat for a few minutes.
• Gradually add the liquid, stirring really fast with a whisk. Bring to simmering point - the sauce should thicken up a bit. Add the cooked shallot and mushrooms. Taste and adjust for seasoning.
• Serve with the chicken.
• A leg for me, please....