Fantastic Roast Chicken

You know, I didn’t know who Jaime Oliver was for a really long time. I kept hearing people rave about him but didn’t even know what he looked like. That was until I happened to flip the channels and come across this cooking show that I had never seen before. I thought the guy was great! He was using lots of flavour and keeping things pretty simple…and then when I saw the credits and the light bulb went off. This whole thing is the segue to the fact that this recipe is from none other than Jaime Oliver and coincidently enough, it’s taken from that original episode that introduced me to him in the first place.
This roast chicken really is fantastic. I added a handful of baby carrots to give the dish some more colour, and couldn’t find a celeriac so omitted that, although I’m sure it would taste awesome.

Ingredients

2 pounds chicken, preferably organic
1 large lemon
8 slices prosciutto or Parma ham, thinly sliced
1 to 2 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped
2 good handfuls fresh thyme, leaves picked and finely chopped
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
4 ounces softened butter
2 pounds potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
1 large celeriac, peeled

1. Preheat the oven and an appropriately sized roasting tray to 425 F. Wash your chicken inside and out and pat dry. Using your fingers, part the breast skin from the breast meat. It's important to try to push your hand gently down the breast, being careful not to rip the skin.

2. With a peeler, remove and chop the fragrant yellow skin of the lemon, keeping the peeled lemon to one side. Chop prosciutto and add to the bowl with the lemon skin, garlic and thyme. Season, with salt and pepper and then mix it all into the butter. Push this into the space you have made between the meat and the skin -- rub and massage any that's left over in and around the bird.

3. Slash the thigh meat to allow the heat to penetrate a little more, which makes it taste better. Cut the peeled lemon in half and push it into the cavity. Then put chicken in the hot roasting tray and roast in the preheated oven for 20 minutes.

4. While the chicken is cooking, parboil the potatoes in salted water for 10 minutes and drain. Cut the celeriac into irregular chunks around the same size as the potatoes.

5. Remove the chicken from the oven, by which time the tasty butter will have melted, flavored and cooked out of the chicken into the bottom of the tray, awaiting your potatoes and celeriac. Put a fork into the cavity of the chicken and lift it off of the tray for 20 seconds while tossing and coating the vegetables in the butter. Put the chicken back on top of the vegetables and cook for around 40 minutes. Leave to stand for 10 minutes.