Honey, Vanilla, and Thyme Roasted Chicken

Submitted by AaliyahsAaronsMum

"Don't be put off by the ingredients - honey and vanilla - with chicken! Surprisingly, they complement each other very well. A perfect sunday roast."

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photo by 2Bleu

Ready In:: 2hrs
Ingredients:: 19
Serves:: 4

ingredients

For the chicken
1 (1 1/4 kg) whole chickens
1 bunch fresh thyme
2 -4 tablespoons butter
1 vanilla pod or 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 tablespoons clear honey
3 -4 garlic cloves, grated
350 ml chicken stock
salt & freshly ground black pepper
For roast vegetables
1 swede
2 parsnips
2 carrots
1 onion
1 dash vegetable oil
2 sprigs fresh rosemary
salt & freshly ground black pepper
For the mash
4 large potatoes
50 g butter
100 ml whipping cream
salt & freshly ground black pepper

directions

Pre-heat oven to gas mark 6/400F/200°C.
Pick the thyme leaves off and discard the stalks and finely chop the leaves.
In a bowl, put the knob of butter and add half of the chopped thyme and the grated garlic and give it all a good mix.
Lift the skin of the chicken with your fingers and push the herbed butter underneath the skin (you need to be very gentle as to not tear the skin).
Season the chicken well inside and out.
Slightly warm the honey in another bowl.
Split the vanilla pod lengthways and scrape the inside with the back of a knife and mix into the warmed honey.
Add the remaining chopped thyme into the honey mixture.
Place the chicken into a roasting tray and pour the honey mixture all over the chicken and pour 100ml of chicken stock into the tray.
For the roast vegetables, peel the swede, parsnips and carrots and cut into equal sized chunks.
Peel the onion and cut into wedges.
Pick the rosemary leaves and roughly chop them.
Toss all the vegetables in a little oil, add in the rosemary and season it well and place them in another roasting tray.
Cook the chicken in the centre shelf and the vegetables in the bottom shelf.
The vegetables will take about 30-35 minutes to cook (but the tray needs to be shaken and vegetables turned over every 15 minutes but be careful not to break them).
The chicken will take about 1 hour to cook, basting it with the juices every 15 minutes as well.
Meanwhile, to make the mash, peel the potatoes and chop them into large chunks and boil them in seasoned water until soft.
Mash the potatoes and add the butter and season it well.
Pass it through a sieve to get rid of any lumps and cover to keep warm.
Once the chicken is ready, remove from the tray and transfer onto a serving dish. Cover the chicken with foil and let it rest for 20 minutes.
Using a spoon, skim off the excess fat from the juices in the roasting tin and then add the remaining stock to the tray, scrape and mix with the juices.
Pour the juices into a saucepan and bring it to boil for about 5 minutes.
Whip the cream lightly.
Add 2tbsp of the whipped cream into gravy in the saucepan and when it has warmed through remove from heat.
Strain the gravy into a serving jug.
Add the remaining cream to the mashed potatoes and mix in thoroughly. Re-heat if necessary in a pan or in the microwave.
Transfer the roast vegetables into a serving dish.
Serve all together and carve at the table.

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Reviews

This recipe made it into our Book #179627 This is an outstanding chicken dinner recipe. I did make a few changes, but it sure didn't hurt it any! First thing I did was make a seasoned butter with 4 tbsp butter, 5 sprigs of thyme, and 1 tbsp roasted minced garlic. The veggies I used were carrots, red potatoes, and onions. I baked the chicken for 30 minutes, then put the veggies around it. I took the drippings from the chicken (about 1 1/2 cups, and mixed 1 cup milk and 1/4 cup flour together, then added that to the drippings with 2 tbsp butter to make a wonderful gravy. It is unbelievable how great this tastes. I did taste the vanilla, but I added twice the recommended amount. Wonderful! I can't wait to make this one again for company! Thanks for sharing. -Bird-

2Bleu
I can not get over how good this recipe is. We left out the potatoes as the veg and chicken were enough for us, and we used chicken pieces instead of whole chicken and it was serious ah-ma-zing. For the gravy we mixed the juices from the vegetables and chicken with cream and corn flour and it was just excellent. My husband - who is not a roast veg fan - commented on how good it was. It's also a PERFECT December dish as everything was in my veggie box and we still have rosemary and thyme growing in the garden. Fantastic recipe, thanks!

Luschka
We really liked this a lot! Since I am baking in a toaster oven and needed 8 servings, I used chicken pieces rather than whole chickens. I had five in a baking dish which I covered with foil until done and then browned the skin by removing the foil for the last 10 minutes. The remaining 3 pieces I put in foil envelopes. Both methods had great results! I used 2Bleu's method for gravy and enjoyed that as well. Thanks for the unique recipe!

Chef de Sucre
Loved it! The chicken was soft and juicy and I particularly liked the garlic/thyme/butter under the skin as it gave wonderful flavour. The honey on top was also good, but the vanilla pod (that I bought only this afternoon) was so hard and dry when I opened the package that I had no hope of scraping it, so I added a small dash of extract and broke the pod into as many pieces as possible and used it anyway. The vanilla flavour was there but not nearly as much as it would have been had the pod been better I am certain. I'm low carbing 5 days out of 7 and so today didn't do the potatoes.. and I couldn't find a swede, so stuck to a mountain of carrots and parsnips. Since I thought from the title that the main focus of this recipe is the chicken and roast veg I didn't think that potatoes would be missed too much for the review... but would include them if I made this again on a "carb day". Please see my rating system: 4 great stars for a lovely recipe that is full of herby flavour and wonderful roast chicken taste. Takes a little longer to perpare than some recipes, but the result is good. Thanks!

kiwidutch

Tweaks

I can not get over how good this recipe is. We left out the potatoes as the veg and chicken were enough for us, and we used chicken pieces instead of whole chicken and it was serious ah-ma-zing. For the gravy we mixed the juices from the vegetables and chicken with cream and corn flour and it was just excellent. My husband - who is not a roast veg fan - commented on how good it was. It's also a PERFECT December dish as everything was in my veggie box and we still have rosemary and thyme growing in the garden. Fantastic recipe, thanks!

Luschka

RECIPE SUBMITTED BY

AaliyahsAaronsMum

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