Honey-Mustard Roast Chicken with Lemon Stuffing and Vegetables

Perfect family dinner for those cold Winter nights!

Hubby and I really enjoy our Sunday roasts if we have the time to prepare and cook. This roast chicken is probably the easiest and quickest of the roasts we enjoy, and there's always leftovers for another night. I throw all the vegetables into the roasting pan throughout and serve everything in the one pan.

Note: I use a Dutch oven on the stove top to cook my roast so the times and temperatures for the oven are based on the information provided in my cook books.

Serves 4

Times

Preparation:

30-40 minutes

Cooking:

About 2 hours

Ingredients

• Medium whole chicken (approx 1.8kg)
• 200g potatoes, cut into halves or quarters, depending on size of potatoes
• 200g pumpkin
• Other favourite vegetables such as yellow squash, broccoli, zucchini cut or sliced
• For stuffing:
• 1 slice of bread, torn into small pieces or about 1 cup of cooked rice
• 1 small onion, diced finely
• 1-1½ small lemons (depending on how sour you like your stuffing)
• 30g of dried fruit, try cranberries, sultanas or even mixed dried fruit
• 1 Tbs of chopped fresh parsley or dill
• 1 tsp mustard seeds
• For flavouring:
• 3 cloves of garlic, grated
• 1 Tbs honey
• 1 tsp wholegrain mustard
• 1 tsp dijonnaise
• Extra 1-2 Tbs honey (optional)

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C.
2. For the stuffing:
1. Zest ½-1 lemon, and then cut up the zested lemon and the remaining lemon (including the peel) into small pieces.
2. Mix all the stuffing ingredients, including the lemon zest and lemon pieces together in a bowl, and put aside.
3. For the flavouring, mix the grated garlic, honey, wholegrain mustard and dijonnaise in a small bowl, and put aside.
4. Wash the chicken and ensure that all the water is drained from the cavity.
5. Working from the leg end of the chicken, gently lift the skin with your fingers working across the breast and down the legs.

   Lift as much of the skin from the flesh as you can without breaking the skin.

6. Rub the flavouring between the skin and the flesh.
7. Stuff the chicken cavity with the lemon stuffing.
8. Tie the legs together with cooking twine or an elastic band.
9. Place the chicken in a baking dish lined with foil or baking paper, or in an oven bag.
10. If you want, drizzle extra honey over the chicken.
11. Roast in oven for about 1½-2 hours. (Assume about 1 hour per kg).
12. Add prepared vegetables to baking dish based on cooking times, which depend on the vegetables and how small you cut them. The smaller the pieces, the quicker it is for them
    • Potatoes require about 1½ hours to cook depending on the size of the cut pieces. As soon as I have the chicken in the oven, I usually wash the potatoes, cut them up, add them to the baking pan, and spray them with olive oil.
    • Root vegetables like carrots, pumpkin, sweet potato require about an hour to cook.
    • Vegetables like yellow squash, capsicum, broccoli require 10-20 minutes to cook.
    • Mushrooms about 10 minutes.