Greatest recipes ever: Simon Hopkinson’s Roast Chicken
Fergus Henderson chooses Simon Hopkinson’s roast chicken as one of this greatest recipes ever.

Chef and restauranteur Fergus Henderson loves roast chicken - and particularly roast chicken as prepared by writer and Country Life contributor Simon Hopkinson.
‘There's something amazing about the way Simon Hopkinson cooks,' Fergus says.
'It's a treat and a joy (heavy on the joy and, in fact, on the treat as well). He writes as beautifully as he cooks, to boot.'
Simon Hopkinson's Roast chicken recipe
Extract from Simon Hopkinson's Roast chicken and other stories (with Lindsey Bareham) Published by Ebury Press in 1999
Ingredients
- 110g/4oz good butter, at room temperature
- 1.8kg/4lb free-range chicken
- Salt and pepper
- 1 lemon
- Several sprigs of thyme/tarragon
- 1 garlic clove, peeled and crushed
Method
Preheat the oven to 450˚F/230˚C/Gas Mark 8. Smear the butter all over the bird. Put the chicken in a roasting tin that will accommodate it with room to spare. Season liberally with salt and pepper and squeeze over the juice of the lemon. Put the herbs and garlic inside the cavity, together with the squeezed out lemon halves-this will add a fragrant lemony flavour to the finished dish.
Roast the chicken in the oven for 10-15 minutes. Baste, then turn the oven temperature down to 375˚F/190˚C/Gas Mark 5 and roast for a further 30-45 minutes with further occasional basting. The bird should be golden-brown with a crisp skin and have buttery, lemony juices of a nut-brown colour in the bottom of the tin.
Turn off the oven and leave the chicken to rest for at least 15 minutes before carving. This enables the flesh to relax gently, retaining the juices in the mat and ensuring easy, trouble-free carving and a moist bird.
Sign up for the Country Life Newsletter
Exquisite houses, the beauty of Nature, and how to get the most from your life, straight to your inbox.
Carve the bird to suit yourself; I like to do it in the roasting tin. I see no point in making a gravy in that old-fashioned English way with the roasting fat, flour and vegetable cooking water. With this roasting method, what you end up with in the tin is an amalgamation of butter, lemon juice and chicken juices. It's perfect homogenisation of fats and liquids.
All it needs is a light whisk or a stir, and you have the most wonderful ‘gravy' imaginable. To add extra flavour, scoop the garlic and herbs out of the gravy cavity, stir them into the gravy and heat through; strain before serving.
Another idea, popular with the Italians, is sometimes known as ‘wet-roasting'. Pour some white wine or a little chicken stock, or both, or even just water around the bottom of the tin at the beginning of cooking. This will produce more of the sauce and can be enriched further to produce altogether different results.
For example, you can add chopped tomatoes, diced bacon, cream, endless different herbs, mushrooms, spring vegetables, spices-particularly saffron and ginger-or anything else that you fancy. For me, the simple roast bird is the best, but it is useful to know how much further you can go when roasting a chicken.
This article first appeared in Country Life in 2014
Credit: Jason Lowe
Recipe: Simon Hopkinson's raspberries and custard
Simple and sublime: chilled custard and sweet raspberries make a great pudding.
Credit: Jason Lowe
Recipe: Simon Hopkinson's Le Mont Blanc meringue cake
Surrender to this sinful meringue pudding.
St Clements cream and spiced Meyer lemons
Simon Hopkinson gets creative with citrus.
Credit: Jason Lowe
Simon Hopkinson's perfect moules mariniere
Bring the flavour of the seaside into your home with this delicious mussel recipe.
Country Life is unlike any other magazine: the only glossy weekly on the newsstand and the only magazine that has been guest-edited by HRH The King not once, but twice. It is a celebration of modern rural life and all its diverse joys and pleasures — that was first published in Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee year. Our eclectic mixture of witty and informative content — from the most up-to-date property news and commentary and a coveted glimpse inside some of the UK's best houses and gardens, to gardening, the arts and interior design, written by experts in their field — still cannot be found in print or online, anywhere else.
-
If the Volvo ES90 is the answer, what is the question?
Volvo's latest luxury saloon car impresses in unexciting ways, with an unwavering commitment to safety and comfort.
By James Fisher Published
-
Five classic country houses for sale, from an equestrian home to a manor with a wisteria-draped pool, as seen in Country Life
Our pick of some of the best houses to come to the market via Country Life this week includes a house with a beautiful outdoor pool,
By Toby Keel Published