Orangey Roast Chicken

As a child, we very rarely had roasts. It was mainly kept to special occasions, such as Christmas, New Years, and Birthday's (on request). Now I am much older, it seems to be the same. Apart from tonight, when I craved a pipping hot roasted meal.

One of my jobs was to clean out the Turkey or Chicken and fill it with stuffing. My traditional family recipe for stuffing (seasoning) included dried fruit, nuts of some description and sherry. I have kept to this tradition, tweaking it with things I have around the house or trying new flavours.

I keep on watching shows with fancy recipes for Roast Chicken. However, most of the ingredients you generally don't have lying around the house. Well, not unless you have a fully stocked French and Italian pantry! I felt like making something a bit more fancy, and have tried to just use things most people have around their house for this particular version of a roast-c.

Serves 4 - 6

1.5kg Free-Range Organic Chicken
Olive Oil
2 pieces of bread
2 cloves garlic
handful of dried apricots
handful of sultanas
handful of pepitas/cashews or almonds
1 orange
1 egg
1/4 cup sherry
Thyme
Salt and Pepper
2 tbs Orange Marmalade/Apricot Jam
Roasting veggies and greens (enough for 6)
Gravy Powder

 Secret Stuffing!

Clean and dry the chicken. Grease a roasting tray with olive oil and place chicken on top. To make the stuffing, use a food processor to crumb the bread or chop finely. Remove and place into a bowl. Into the food processor, add the sultanas, garlic and dried apricots. Chop roughly. Add to the bread crumbs. Add the pepitas, egg, 1/2tsp thyme and sherry to the bowl. Cut the orange in half and squeeze one half into the stuffing mix. Stir well. If the stuffing is to dry, add more sherry. Stuff the chicken with small handfuls at a time, and then sew up by covering the stuffing with the excess skin and using skewers or toothpicks.

On the top of the chicken, spread the jam or marmalade. Cut up the other half of the orange into crescents and place on the top of the chicken with skewers. Sprinkle some thyme, salt and pepper over the top. Roast at 180C with foil for 50 min, uncover and add the vegetables and roast for a further hour.  Serve pipping hot with the veggies, gravy made with the orange and chicken juice, steamed greens and a good glass of red.