"roast in the bag" chicken - DIY?

[NumptyMum]

For Christmas, as DH is veggie, I got a "Roast in the bag" chicken for me and DS which really simplified life - and I was surprised by how tasty and succulent it was.

However I don't know what is added to make it tasty which worries me as I'm just weaning DD and without thinking had made stock from it. So I'd like to find out how I can cook chicken better myself, as when I've tried in the past it turned out dry. Any hints?

To keep it moist you can do a similar thing yourself which will be just as easy to do.
Just oil the chicken all over and salt and pepper it. Put a little boiling water in the base of the rosting tin - 1/2 inch or 1 and 1/2 cm. Place in a preheated oven - 250C and allow it to brown - about 25 minutes. Remove from the oven and place foil over it making a tent and not touching the chicken and sealing it round and under the edge of the tin. Put chicken back in the oven and turn heat down to 140C Cook for a further 2 hours.
The moisture in the bottom of the tin will form condensation on the foil which will in turn baste the chicken, keeping it beautifully moist and you needn't do anything. Good Luck! Long slow cooking is better than a fast blast

Thanks very much - only just had the chance to get back onto here to check replies. That sounds great - I'll have a go next time I get a chicken. Re timings, is there any rule about x minutes for however many pounds of chicken? Or will the times above do for any standard supermarket bird (I'll aspire to getting a free-range one if I can...)?

the roast-a-bags are quite good too, keep the chicken very moist.

especially if you have a combi microwave, you can roast a chicken in about an hour, if you use the 30%micro/70% oven setting.

No microwave, just fan/conventional oven.

I guess I was slightly nervous about the plastic bags after googling for the ingredients and coming across this... - not being technical I don't fully understand it, and it does end by saying "can be considered not to present a hazard", and it IS research from 1998 so things may have changed in 12 years... but it did make me a bit nervous!

Timings were for the average 1 - 1 and a half kilo bird. If bigger - you could up the temperature a little for it to cook in the same time.