Roast chicken with lemon

Sometimes the simplest recipes give extraordinary good results.

Like this variation on the classic roast chicken from the oven.

Lemon gives it a bit of peps, it makes it tangy and fresh, it also helps preventing the chicken meat from getting dry during the cooking.

This you can also prevent through low temperature cooking or by putting the chicken in a plastic bag, but then you do not get the typical scorched and crackly skin of the traditional roast chicken.

Here the coriander and the lemon juice give the chicken an appetising colour.

Ingredients

• One chicken, ready to cook
• 50 grams of ground coriander seed
• 4 lemons
• 20 cl of olive oil
• Salt and pepper

Steps

1. Preheat the oven to 200 °C.
2. Clean the chicken and put it in an oven dish with the olive oil.
3. Put in the oven for 15 minutes, then turn it upside down and cook for another 15 minutes.
4. Meanwhile squeeze the juice out of the lemon and cut the peels in slices.
5. Take the chicken in the dish from the oven.
6. Sprinkle half the coriander, some salt and pepper over one side of the chicken, then turn for the other side.
7. Put the lemon peel inside the chicken cavity and pour half the lemon juice over it.
8. Reduce the heat to 175 °C.
9. Put the chicken back in the oven for 15 minutes, turn and add the other half of juice and continue for 15 minutes (or until a meat thermometer reads 75 to 80 °C).
10. Take from the oven and set aside to cool.
11. Cut the chicken and present