Cooking for Love: Rosemary Chicken

One of my favourite one-dish poultry meals is Rosemary Chicken which darling wife, Lynna, prepares with such tender loving care.

It is amusing to watch the way she so fastidiously massages the chicken - both inside and out. First, with 'PacificSalt' sea salt. Then with lemon, garlic and rosemary - but not necessarily in that order. Finally, she drenches the whole chicken very generously with extra virgin olive oil and leaves it to rest. The resting, I believe, is to allow time for absorbing all of the goodness and flavour of the marinade.

The chicken is stuffed with whole salted lemon and garlic bulbs before it is put into the oven, for a gruelling period of roasting. To avoid over-charring and dryness, she takes it out of the oven once every 30 minutes to baste it in its own juices and to add more extra virgin olive oil if needed.

At last, a combo of vegetables goes in the roasting pan - potatoes, pumpkins, corn, Japanese sweet potatoes, and capsicum of different colours.

The product of what might seem to be hours of hard work, is a poultry meal I can only describe as simply the best.

The finished product - simply the best!