Christmas Roast Chicken
A must‑make Christmas roast chicken for the holidays! This time all the ingredients are very everyday and homestyle – the kind where, once you’re tempted after reading, you can just head straight to the market and easily buy everything you need. Technically it’s supposed to be roast turkey, but that really doesn’t fit Chinese eating habits, so just buy a 1–1.5 kg meat chicken or Sanhuang chicken according to how much your family eats. I just used a free‑range chicken from my freezer; the meat isn’t as plump, so the result is actually a bit less impressive, but without a side‑by‑side comparison it’s not very noticeable, haha. When buying the chicken, pick one with a nicely rounded, full breast.
Ingredients
Steps
Take one whole chicken, remove the neck, head and tail, and wash clean for later use.
Use a toothpick to prick holes all over the chicken, then add brandy, black pepper, mixed herbs, light soy sauce, oyster sauce, salt, and a little oil to marinate. After adding all the seasonings, use your hands to rub the marinade all over the inside and outside of the chicken, then give it a “massage”! This helps it absorb more flavor and taste better. If you’re short on time, marinate for about 2 hours; if you have more time, 5–6 hours is even better.
Cut the potatoes, carrots, zucchini, and onion into chunks; slice the head of garlic horizontally; cut each green bean on the bias into 3 sections; cut the tomato and set aside. My board wasn’t big enough, so in the photo the green beans and tomato haven’t been cut yet; you can refer to the ingredient photo below to see what they look like after cutting.
For the side vegetables, I pan‑fried them first to shorten the baking time. Since I’m using small chickens, they’re often cooked through while the vegetables are still hard, so it’s better to pre‑cook the veggies a bit. Add butter to a pan, then add the garlic and onion and fry until fragrant.
Then add the potatoes, carrots, and zucchini and pan‑fry briefly.
After pan‑frying a bit, add the green beans, then grind in black pepper and mixed herbs and sprinkle with salt to season. Fry until the surface of the potatoes just starts to soften slightly, then turn off the heat.
Stuff part of the vegetables into the cavity of the chicken.
Then take an orange of suitable size and stuff it into the chicken cavity to seal the opening. Next, use plain cotton kitchen string to tie up the legs and wings. This keeps the legs and wings from splaying out too wildly during roasting so the final shape looks nicer. Arrange the rest of the vegetables around the chicken. Cut the tomato into pieces and place them on top of the vegetables before putting everything into the oven; don’t pan‑fry the tomato with the other vegetables.
Wrap the drumsticks with foil “flowers,” preheat the oven to 180°C, and roast for about 100 minutes. My oven is too small, so if I put the chicken on the middle rack it almost touches the heating element, so I placed it one level lower, which also gives the vegetables a bit more roasting time. Take 2 spoonfuls of the leftover marinade and mix with 2 spoonfuls of honey to make a basting sauce; baste the chicken once after about 20 minutes of roasting. Near the end, if the top of the chicken is getting too dark, cover it with foil.
How to make the foil “flowers”! Actually, to keep the drumstick bones from burning, you can simply wrap them in a layer of foil, but since you’re wrapping them anyway, making little foil flowers looks prettier and more festive. Cut the foil into roughly 10 cm x 10 cm squares, fold each square in half, then on the folded side cut it with scissors into a comb shape. The left in the picture is folded and being cut, and the right is what it looks like unfolded after cutting.
Keeping the foil folded, insert a chopstick along the folded crease and press along the fold with your hand; the curve of the chopstick helps smooth out the creases made while cutting the foil.
Then roll it up and you’ll have a foil flower.