Roasted Chicken with Potatoes and homemade Gravy

A beautiful roast to serve during the Christmas dinner.

This recipe gets its roots from the recipe we used to make our Holiday Roast Turkey for Thanksgiving.

Even after giving away some of the turkey, we still struggled to eat it all - as it was very big, however a whole chicken does not pose the same logistical challenges and is entirely manageable. Of course, this recipe can be used to roast a small turkey.

Other than thawing the bird in the fridge for a number of days, all other steps involved were given the proper importance.

We brined the bird for 4 hours (which is just enough for a ~1.5 kg chicken), covered it with aluminum foil for the first hour of cooking to keep the juices in (this is a novel step in the process) and then let it cook for 30 minutes uncovered so that it gets crispy. This is also the time when most juices were released - which were later used to cook the vegetables and make a delicious gravy. Lastly, we recommend broiling the turkey for 5-10 more minutes at the end to give it the most delicious color on top. Did we do this? No, but I really wish we did as the chicken looks more pale than the turkey we made last time and I really liked that caramelized look. Was it still juicy and delicious? You bet!

To make the dish extra festive, we added orange zest to the brine, chose to grind nutmeg on the chicken before cooking and added a touch of apricot jam in the gravy. Yum!

This makes for a beautiful alternative to serve for a small get together.

This recipe is part of the 2020 - Week 52 - Christmas Menu. Look under Menus for the other recipes of the series or Subscribe to our mailing list and receive complete weekly menu ideas with everything from the grocery shopping list to all standardized recipes in a menu, as well as an organized Order of Cooking list to save you time in the kitchen.

Want to make it yourself? Download the recipe here:

Roast chicken with potatoes and gravy

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