Cooking a whole chicken- tips please!

[DueyCheatemAndHow]

I've always done roasts with breasts but I want to get more economic with meat.

It's going on in half an hour. No giblets. Any tips?

Do I roast the potatoes round it?!?

I don’t. I roast on a bed of onion and chopped root veg, and celery if I have some which then goes on to make the gravy. Potatoes get cooked separately.

No to the potatoes, do them separately.

You need to be confident to joint and or carve once it's cooked.

I always rub with butter and sprinkle plenty of salt and pepper on. A few wedges of lemon and onion in the cavity.

I don't cover with foil as I like a really crispy skin and I always cook my potatoes separately (chicken on the middle shelf, spuds on the top) as I like crispy potatoes and they soak up the chicken juices if you cook them together.

Great thanks. Not confident at all. Thankfully it's only me, DH and 2 small children so nobody will be too critical if my first effort goes tits up

I do potatoes separately.

Olive oil, salt & pepper on top, it’ll give you a lovely crispy skin. A lemon in the cavity if you have one.

Roughly chop carrots / onion / parsnip / celery (anything you have basically!) shove chicken on top of it.

Mix some mixed herbs with butter - push it under the skin. Shove a lemon up it’s bum.

Roast! Enjoy!

Put two or three cloves of peeled garlic in the cavity, also half a lemon if you've got one.
At the end of cooking, fish out the lemon and squeeze the juice into your gravy for a lemony tang.

It's one of the easiest things to cook imo...just put in oven tray...even if you added nothing, it would cook just fine. But, I smear with some butter or olive oil, salt, pepper on skin...can squeeze a lemon over and stick in cavity. Bed of onions and garlic...if you want . No foil

Simplest way to do it is:

Carrots and onions chopped chunkily in roasting tray, bit of oil
Chicken on top patted dry with kitchen paper then oil and salt
Roast for about 90mins until juices run clear when you pick the thickest part of the leg

Roasties should be par boiled, fluffed in the strainer or pan by shaking them when dry and steamy, then placed into a hot baking tray with some oil that's been in the oven 10mins. Turn once after 25 mins and cook 40-50mins total.

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2010/apr/29/perfect-roast-chicken

Once you're sure it's cooked, take it out of the oven, remove from roasting tin onto a big plate/platter, and put it to one side in a warm place with a bit of foil over the top. It will stay hot for quite a while. During this resting phase, the juices sink back into the flesh and it will make it moister, tastier and easier to carve. While it rests, you can be finishing everything else off. Good opportunity to whack up the oven temperature for the roast potatoes! Also make sure you use the juices from the roasting tin for the gravy as the flavour is much better that way.

I'm doing roast chicken for tea. It's a medium so will cook it in 200C for about 1 hour 15 minutes. Don't want it overcooked. I don't do anything to it like rubbing butter on the skin etc... Roasties separate at the top and chicken on the middle shelf.

Oh yes and rest it for 15 mins.

Probably a bit late for this chicken.
But this produces an amazingly delicious tender chicken, and is piss easy to do:

cafedelites.com/garlic-herb-butter-roast-chicken/

Yes I rest a chicken for 30 mins.

Just keep basting it and you'll be fine