Your chook is cooked

After being hungover as hell yesterday, I felt like roast chook tonight. Silly bloody time to be wanting a hot, roasted chicken - it was about 30 degrees here today (it is still 26 in the office at 9pm) and humid as all buggery. But it was a chook that I wanted, so it was a chook we had. Sunday night really is the best time for a roast chook - even if I bail out of the office before 4pm and bolt home, there really isn't enough time to make a stuffing, chop the vegies and stick a chook into the over for 90 minutes. I times myself tonight - it took me just over half an hour from pulling the chook out of the fridge to when I popped it into the oven. With practice, I might get that time down, but roasting is not the speediest game in town.

It was a bloody marvelous chook by the way. I did it in my dirty great bit Le Creuset pot, starting it with the lid on to moisten it up a bit. I chopped lots of herbs from the garden and put them under it - a few big sprigs of rosemary, a bit head of sage, a big twig of oregano and some thyme. I also chopped two onions and tossed them on top of the herbs, then made a herb butter of garlic, lemon rind and thyme and put that under the skin. The skin was then rubbed with oil and salt, and the vegies tossed in around it.

After half an hour, the lid came off and the chook was left to brown. Unfortunately, I pulled it out a bit early, so it was not as brown and crispy as I like it, and it was still a touch pink in a few spots, but I was carving by the time I found that out. I also did it with pumpkin and parsnips, and the parsnips were not cooked. They were like eating very uncooked parsnips, which are tough as hardwood.

Bugger.

I blame the chicken - it was huge, a number 17 or 18. I am used to smaller chooks - ones that just feed a family of three and leave no leftovers, which is great because the carcase can go straight into a pot for making stock with no stuffing around.

I am still working on my stuffing though. I tried one tonight of onions, garlic, croutons, dates, pine nuts and herbs (mainly thyme) and I thought it was pretty good. I even bunged in half a lemon with the stuffing. No one else will eat it though. Which is good in a way, as I get it all, but it does make me worry about my skills as a cook.

The biggest problem with cooking a chook this way is that it is next to impossible to turn it over. My enourmous Stephanie Alexander cookbook says to turn and baste your chook every 20 minutes. I could hardly get the bloody thing out at the end of the cooking time, let alone spin it every 20 minutes. Maybe if I trussed it up with baling wire to make it look like a football, I might be able to turn it then.