Go Back
+ servings
Roast chicken with lemon, white wine, rosemary and thyme sauce.
Print Recipe
4.91 from 10 votes

french roast chicken with lemon

A truly wonderful roast chicken is a marvellous thing. This roast chicken with lemon is sure to impress.
Prep Time10 minutes
Cook Time50 minutes
Total Time1 hour
Course: Main
Cuisine: French
Servings: 4
Author: romain | glebekitchen

Ingredients

  • 1 4 lb chicken - air chilled
  • 1/2 lemon
  • 1/2 onion
  • 1 sprig rosemary
  • 1-2 sprigs thyme
  • 1 cup white wine
  • 1 cup chicken stock plus some concentrated chicken stock if you have it
  • 1 tbsp olive oil
  • salt and pepper

Instructions

  • Pre-heat the oven to 385F. Put your roasting pan into the oven.
  • Order is important. Put the thyme and rosemary into the cavity, followed by the 1/2 lemon and finally the 1/2 onion. Tie the legs together with butcher's twine (look closely in the picture). Rub the chicken with olive oil and then season generously with salt and pepper.
  • Place the chicken in the hot pan - it should sizzle - and put it in the oven for 5 minutes. This will prevent the bird from sticking. Remove the pan from the oven and pour 1/2 cup white wine around the chicken. It should sizzle again.
  • Return to oven and roast until you hit an internal temperature of 165F in the breast, 175F in the thigh - 45 to 55 minutes. Baste the bird at around the 25 minute mark - just spoon some fat out of the pan and over the bird.
  • When you hit temp, pull the chicken from the oven and then transfer it to a cutting board.
  • Spoon off all but about 1-2 Tbsp of fat from the pan, taking care only to remove clear fat. Anything liquid with colour is flavour. You want that. You also want all those wonderful brown bits in the bottom of the pan. That's called fond and it's about the best thing you can put into a sauce.
  • Heat the pan over medium heat. When it starts to sizzle, add the remaining 1/2 cup of wine. Boil it down, scraping constantly to dissolve the fond, until it's a wonderful sticky glaze. Add the chicken stock and concentrated chicken stock (this puts it over the top) and reduce by about half.
  • Once the chicken has rested around 15 minutes carve into quarters (whole legs plus a boneless chicken breast picking up the wing). If this doesn't make sense, google "chicken supreme" images. Same thing except keep the whole wing. Pour any accumulated juices back into your sauce (more flavour), re-heat the sauce if necessary and serve.

Notes

An oven proof skillet that just fits the chicken works well for this recipe. When you pull the chicken out of the oven put a cloth on the handle of the pan to remind you it's been in an oven for an hour. If you don't, you will grab it and burn yourself. Everybody does it once - let's not make this "that time". It really, really hurts.