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The Sunday Roast · England-wide

Roast Chicken with Bread Sauce

A properly roasted free-range bird with burnished skin, served with medieval England’s greatest gift to the dinner table — clove-and-onion bread sauce.

Prep
20 min
Cook
85 min
Total
105 min
Yield
Serves 4
Difficulty
Moderate
Era
Medieval sauce, eternal bird
Roast Chicken with Bread Sauce

Ingredients

  • 1 × 1.8kg free-range chicken
  • 50g softened butter
  • 1 lemon, halved; few sprigs thyme
  • 1 bulb garlic, halved
  • For the bread sauce: 500ml milk, 1 onion studded with 6 cloves, 2 bay leaves
  • 100g fresh white breadcrumbs
  • 2 tbsp butter and 2 tbsp cream
  • Roast potatoes and game chips, to serve

Method

Oven190°C375°FFan 170°CGas 5
  1. Heat the oven to 190°C / 375°F (fan 170°C, gas 5).
  2. Stuff the cavity with lemon, thyme and garlic. Smear the bird all over with butter and season generously.
  3. Roast for 1 hour 20 minutes, basting twice, until the skin is deep gold and the leg juices run clear (75°C / 167°F at the thigh).
  4. Meanwhile, infuse the milk with the clove-studded onion and bay at a bare simmer for 20 minutes. Discard the onion and bay.
  5. Stir the breadcrumbs into the hot milk; simmer 3 minutes until thick. Finish with butter, cream, salt and white pepper.
  6. Rest the chicken 15 minutes. Carve and serve with the warm bread sauce, roasties and watercress.

Oven temperatures are given in Celsius, Fahrenheit, fan and gas mark throughout. Quantities are metric, as cooked and written in the UK.