Easy Roast Chicken With Stuffing
 
 
Author::
Recipe type: winter
Ingredients:
Stuffing
  • 1½ cups breadcrumbs
  • 1 onion
  • 1 tablespoons parsley
  • 1 egg
Roast
  • 1 whole large chicken
  • 8 large potatoes
  • 500 grams butternut pumpkin
  • 1 small piece of broccoli
  • 4 large carrots
  • 250 grams frozen peas
  • 50 grams butter
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
Gravy
  • 250 mls chicken stock
  • 1 - 2 tablespoons corn flour (depending how thick you like it)
  • 3 - 4 tablespoons water
Method:
Stuffing
  1. Lightly beat egg in a medium sized bowl.
  2. Finely chop onion and add it to the egg with the breadcrumbs and parsley. Combine well.

Roast Chicken and Veg
  1. Preheat oven to 200 degrees Celsius.
  2. I truly detest handling raw meat and a whole chicken is the worst for me. Remove any fatty, wobbly bits from the cavity of chicken.
  3. Stuff chicken with your homemade seasoning. Don't fill it up too much as the breadcrumbs will expand during cooking.

  4. Then it is time to tie the chicken up! Place chicken on a chopping board, breast side up. Loop string around the tail end. Bring string around the ends of the drumsticks. Follow the creases in the drumsticks and body and pull the string towards the wing end of the chicken.
  5. Turn the chicken over and take string over the wings and tie in a knot.
  6. Rub chicken liberally with butter and season with salt and pepper to taste.
  7. Place chicken on a rack over a baking dish.

  8. Half fill the baking dish with water, but don't let the water touch the chicken. The water helps prevent the chicken from drying out.
  9. Bake for 15 minutes and then reduce temperature to 180 degrees Celsuis.
  10. As a guide, they say a 1.5kg whole stuffed chicken takes about 30 minutes per 500g of weight to cook in an oven preheated to 180°C. Our chicken was close to 2kg and it took a little bit over 2 hours.
  11. Cooking the veggies this way will take about 1.5 hours, so you need to make a start once you have the chicken in the oven. Cut potatoes into even size pieces.

  12. Do the same with the pumpkin and then place then into a steamer and cook for about 15 minutes. They need to have cooked, but not be too soft.
  13. Once they have cooked enough in the steamer, place them onto trays lined with baking paper. Allow them to cool for about 10 - 15 minutes. I find letting them "dry off" a bit first before splashing with oil and cooking them, means they turn out a little more crunchy.

  14. Brush potato and pumpkin with olive oil and season with salt and pepper to taste.

  15. Pop them in the oven and they will take about an hour to cook. Turn after 30 minutes, so they are evenly cooked.
  16. Shuck corn, slice carrots and cut up broccoli.
  17. I steam corn for about 20 minutes and the other veggies for about 10 minutes, so place them on to cook at 20 and 10 minutes before the chicken will be ready, respectively.

  18. To test if the chicken is ready, insert a skewer into the thickest part of the thigh. If the juices run clear with no sign of pink, then it is ready to eat.
Gravy
  1. Remove the chicken from the roasting pan and cover with foil to keep warm. Or if you have a helper in the kitchen, get them to start carving the chicken.
  2. Make a paste from the corn flour and water.
  3. Place roasting pan on top of your stove. Heat the pan on high and add chicken stock. Once boiling, add the corn flour paste, reduce heat and stir continuously until gravy thickens.
  4. Pour into gravy jug.

  5. Serve up chicken, veggies, gravy and of course stuffing for those who like it.
Recipe by Planning With Kids at https://planningwithkids.com/2012/02/19/easy-roast-chicken-with-stuffing/