Earlier in the day I purchased two plump, fresh 1.8 kilogram chooks from Chilcott’s Butchery. I’ve dubbed David Chilcott as the “butcher to the stars”, having recently supplied all the meat and poultry to feed Jon Bon Jovi and his entourage during the rock-star’s recent Sydney tour. 

With a minimum of fuss I turned the trimmed chickens into a Succulent Roast Chicken dinner, served alongside Warm Potato Salad dressed with Dijon mustard, a little egg mayonnaise and flat-leaf parsley, and a Crisp Baby Cos Salad drizzled with lemon juice and olive oil. 

The small bowl of oregano and rosemary pictured below was picked from my garden just as the oven was turned on to pre-heat at 200 degrees on a conventional setting. This chicken dish can also be baked using the fan forced option, but the temperature must then be reduced to 180 degrees. I rubbed the chickens all over with a combination of these herbs, half a dozen crushed garlic cloves, one tablespoon of sea salt, a good splash of olive oil and half a cup of verjuice. All of this was done in the baking pan – I try to avoid using an excess of dishes in the prep stage because washing up is such a tedious task. The extra verjuice left in the bottom of the pan will help retain moisture during roasting and forms a delicious sauce to spoon over the meat once served.

As for optimum cooking time? Well, I found that chickens this size need about 90 minutes to roast, with another 15 minutes out of the oven, covered with aluminium foil to rest prior to carving. As a guide allow 20 minutes cooking time per 500 grams of whole chicken, plus an extra 20 minutes at the end before removing from the oven. 

A Coconut Scented Sponge filled with fresh cream and blueberry jam had my children racing through second servings of the chicken, keen to try a slice of one of their favourite cakes. Jon Bon Jovi would surely find this piece of baking bliss hard to resist.