Chickening Out

On the sixth day of Christmas my penguin gave to me…

Six roasted chickens,

Five golden pastries,

Four wobbling jellies,

Three French badgers,

Two turtle bars,

And a pelican in a pear tree

For all the action the oven at my place gets, it’s never roasted a chicken. This somewhat shameful realisation made me realise that it’s high time to tackle a chook.

The recent excess of going-out-for-gluttony has prompted some staying in for slightly less gluttony. Combined with the Other Penguin’s birthday earlier this week*, this means that there’s no time like not-quite-the-present. Once I’ve recovered from testing brownie inventions, making two cakes**, buying far too many shoes and trying to finish the Christmas shopping, in between assorted seasonal festivities and a stack of deadlines, which is a recipe for chaos, disorder and absolutely no sleep).

So, in between all that dashing about, there’s heaps of time to puzzle over just what sort of roast chicken to do...

Keeping it simple, with the backing of an always-reliable blogger having tried it out?

Thomas Keller's favourite simple roast chicken from Almost Bourdain

Going beautifully rustic and adding some herbs...

Molly Schuster's herb-roasted chicken from Design Sponge

Adding some lemons and oranges to go with the herbs (and some baby potatoes - mmm)...

Citrus and rosemary roast chicken from Good Life Eats

Throwing some tomatoes in with the chicken...

Tomato and thyme roast chicken from Gourmet Traveller

This one’s had some amazing reviews – and there’s nothing like a polarising recipe to get me into the kitchen...

Jamie Oliver's chicken in milk recipe from The Kitchn

Or, maybe putting it off a little longer and letting the experts handle it...

Roast chicken from Glebe Point Diner, photographed by Eat Show & Tell, as previously sampled

* The Other Penguin seems to have a particular love of chicken, which was variously sampled while on our grand food tour honeymoon (but not quite as much as my snaffling of baking)
** Technically three, but the less said about that, the better...