Lurpak's blogger of the week

Massive thank you to the folks over at Lurpak who have made me their blogger of the week, over on facebook.com. Here's the featured recipe:

Roast Chicken with a spiced honey glaze.

Ingredients:
1 Whole chicken (preferably free range)
3 cloves garlic
about a tablespoon butter
1 small onion
1 small lemon
a sprig of thyme
1 tbsp. honey
½ tsp. ground ginger
½ tsp. ground cinnamon
salt & pepper

Method:
Pre-heat oven to 200°C (180°C for fan-assisted ovens).

To make the glaze:
mix the honey, ground ginger, ground cinnamon and the juice of a small lemon and season lightly. Set lemon halves aside.

Then...

Peel and thinly slice the garlic, mixing it into the butter with salt and pepper to taste. This will give the breasts in particular and lovely garlicky taste and keep them extra moist, the butter makes it especially moorish.

Take the chicken, neck facing you, and lift the skin away from the breast. Massage the garlic and butter mixture under the skin, pushing it along evenly. Rub any excess butter into the skin and on the thighs.

Season the cavity. Peel an onion and cut it into quarters, stuff the cavity with the onion, lemon halves and thyme.

Brush the glaze all over the chicken, then season with salt and pepper liberally.

Place in a roasting pan, breast side up and pour in half a cup of water to stop it drying out and make a gravy at the end.

Cook for 45 minutes per kilogram plus 20 minutes, basting occasionally (add more water if you find it drying out too much). You'll know it's ready when the juice from the thigh runs clear and the chicken's turned a nice golden brown.

Allow to rest for about 10 minutes and use the juices in the roasting pan as a gravy.

Lurpak photoshoot/recipe

A few months ago I was approached by a digital agency (and soon after the advertising agency) for Lurpak butter asking me to write a recipe for them, that soon turned into an invitation to a photoshoot so they could feature it (and being paid to boot!). It was great fun, here's the link to the pdf so far, I'll put more stuff up once I hear more from them.

http://www.lurpak.co.uk/downloads/Lurpak_Blogger_Recipes_2010.pdf