roast chicken with stout, rosemary and honey

I’ve taken my all time favourite roast chicken recipe which I’ve made using whole birds and chicken pieces and adapted it using stout instead of wine or verjuice. I really dont know how to make a more succulent roast chicken. I played around with the seasonings to better compliment the beer, and it turned out to be utterly delicious. The onions and carrots – which roast slowly with the chicken, and the honey add a much needed sweet element to offset the bitterness of the stout. The beer adds a rich savoury flavour to the sauce – which is plentiful, and reduces to a delicious jus to serve with the meat. Its so delicious you will grab a spoon and sip it like a broth. 

Roasting chicken at home in your own oven is one of the most comforting things you can cook. It takes about 5 minutes to prep everything that goes in the pan here. The 90 minutes in the oven takes care of everything else, and apart from the occasional basting or flipping of the bird, its pretty effortless. I can highly recommend serving this chicken with my best-ever duck fat roasted potatoes. Just make sure you roast way more than you think you will need as they are ridiculously moreish. 

I developed this recipe for Castle Milk Stout – South Africas’ most popular stout brand and I simply love using it my cooking and baking:

Recipe – serves 4

• 1 whole large free-range chicken, trussed
• 1 onion peeled and roughly chopped
• 2 carrots roughly chopped
• 250ml (1 cup) Castle Milk Stout
• 125ml (1/2 a cup) chicken stock (1 x chicken or veg stock cube)
• 1 Tbs finely chopped rosemary + 4 – 5 extra sprigs for the pan
• 2 Tbs chopped parsley
• 4 cloves of garlic crushed
• 1 tsp Dijon mustard
• 3 Tbsp honey
• 3 Tbs olive oil
• salt and pepper

Pre heat the oven to 200 C / 400F. 

Place the chicken, onions and carrots in a deep-sided roasting pan.

Mix all the liquid, mustard, honey, garlic and herbs together and pour this sauce over the chickens and into the cavity.

Drizzle over the olive oil and season the chicken with salt and pepper.

Roast uncovered for 1 1/2 hours and until the chickens are cooked.

Turn the chicken over half way through so that the underside gets golden brown and crispy too. Finish it off with a last browning on the breast side at the end

Strain the pan juices, onion and carrot and use this delicious jus as your gravy.

My other recipes using Castle Milk Stout

Welsh rarebit with stout

Easy stout fruit cake

Cheddar & stout fondue

Triple ginger and stout cake with a stout butterscotch sauce

Stout beef & mushroom stew

Stout hot cross buns

*This post is proudly sponsored by SAB

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