Betty/Ruth Reichl’s Frugal Roast Chicken

In these terrible times Yumi is self-soothing by re-watching her favourite TV show and Jennifer Wong is re-reading a tried, tested and quite wonderful food book called Sapphires and Garlic by New York Times critic Ruth Reichl (which you can read for free in pdf form here; the chapter on Betty is page 205.)

In it is a fantastic and fantastically simple and humble recipe that the world-famous foodie created - for a frugal, whole roasted chicken.

A FRUGAL REPAST FOR BETTY - WHOLE ROASTED CHICKEN

Preheat the oven to 200C.

Wash and dry the whole raw chicken. Pat dry. Snip off the fatty flap of skin with scissors. Gently lift the skin on top of the breast meat, being careful not to puncture the skin, and spread out the fatty piece of skin between the skin and the breast.

Prick a whole lemon 8-15 times with a fork and place it inside the chicken's cavity.

Season the whole beast well with salt, pepper and olive oil.

Place the chicken on a small rack and place that inside a roasting tray.

Cut 4 x potatoes into 8 pieces each, 1 onion into 6 pieces, add 4 cloves of garlic to this then toss the lot in olive oil then tumble into the roasting tray with the chicken.

Roast for 1 hour.

Serve elegantly!

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