Garlic-butter roast chicken with a wine deglaze

Recipes need not be complicated. It doesn’t take a long list of ingredients to create a delicious dish. Butter, garlic, salt and pepper are all you need for this recipe, and butter is one of a chicken’s best friends. Garlic, likewise, is one of butter’s best friends, so this is a very happy little gathering.

There’s plenty of fresh garlic in this and garlic flakes too, for a bit of crunch on the skin.

Ingredients

1 large, good-quality chicken

6 Tbsp butter at room temperature (more if you like)

4 fat garlic cloves, peeled and chopped finely

1 Tbsp garlic flakes

Salt to taste

White pepper to taste

1 head of garlic, whole

Wild garlic flowers for garnish

A glass of dry white wine

1 tsp cornflour mixed thoroughly with a little water

Method

In a bowl, mix the chopped garlic into the butter and season with salt and white pepper.

Clean and dry the bird, cutting off any extraneous fat in the cavity and the wing tips. Season the cavity with salt and white pepper. Use slim fingers to prise the breast skin away at both ends to make pockets, being careful not to tear the skin.

Spoon some of the garlic butter under the breast skin and massage the skin with your fingers to spread it around underneath.

Season the bird on all sides with salt. Cut through the top of the garlic head and place it inside the cavity. This helps the garlic to infuse the bird.

Rub the remaining garlic butter all over the skin, generously. Sprinkle garlic flakes on top.

Roast in a preheated oven at 240℃ for 30 minutes, uncovered, then turn the heat down to 200℃ and continue roasting until, when pricked through the breast to the bone with a slim skewer, the juices run colourless. Give it 15 minutes to rest in the turned-off oven with the door ajar. 

Deglaze the pan with the wine on a moderately high heat, stirring, and cook for a few minutes. Squeeze the contents of the garlic cloves that were inside the cavity into the sauce. Pour in the diluted cornflour and stir while it thickens.

I roasted potatoes with it after parboiling them, and added a few mushrooms near the end. Or I’d serve this with these hasselbacks. DM

Tony Jackman is twice winner of the Galliova Food Writer of the year award, in 2021 and 2023

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This dish is photographed on a plate by Mervyn Gers Ceramics.