Orange and Thyme Roasted Chicken with Gravy

This is a simple recipe for roasting chicken delicately flavoured with orange and thyme, and how to make a simple but delicious gravy with onions that have been roasted alongside the bird.

Although this recipe is called Orange and Thyme Roasted Chicken it doesn’t really taste that much of either. They add a subtle flavour that enhances the taste of the chicken. It might sound funny but some how it works. When you taste this chicken you just think “oh yeah, that’s what real chicken is supposed to taste like…”

For the gravy you blend together onions that have roasted in the same pan as the chicken, with the roasting juices and fat, with a little orange juice, wholegrain mustard, salt and some hot water. You don’t need any flour to thicken the sauce because whizzing up the mix causes the fat to emulsify it all. I’m not sure if this is the healthiest gravy but it is certainly the easiest. You don’t have to skim off any fat (which to be honest I’ve always found impossible to do right), you don’t have to make a roux or add any sort of flour, you don’t need to reduce anything… It’s so simple – and honestly it tastes great.

I used a free-range chicken from one of the supermarkets for this – it tasted great. To be honest, this recipe will make any chicken taste great. But I didn’t go on to boil up the carcass afterwards to make some stock because if I’m going to be doing that I want to get one of those organic chickens. They are twice the size of the chicken here and four times the price – but it’s worth it. The taste of an organic chicken is just … can’t be beat.

Also making stock in this apartment feels like you’re in an oddly-chicken-smelling sauna.

Oh, just one last thing to say – don’t wash your chicken. I personally never washed a chicken. I wasn’t even aware that people do that – wash their meat and fish? Then I heard a bit about it on the radio one day. Some people do that. Don’t do that with your chicken. Washing raw chicken before cooking can increase your risk of food poisoning from campylobacter bacteria.

Didn’t I used to have issues with cooking chicken though? And it’s not like I ever washed a chicken. Um … yeah. That’s true. But I was a pretty terrible cook prior to years of seriously “trying” with twimii. The rather obvious – and for most people unnecessary – advice I could give is – if it’s hovering in or around the use-by-date and it already smells slightly wrong … throw the damn thing out. Come on it costs less than a fiver. It’s not worth it.

The way I make Orange and Thyme Roasted Chicken with Gravy is

I know that last piece of priceless advice has probably scared you off but honestly forget all that and just try this recipe you’ll be surprised how good this chicken – and gravy – tastes.