Fig & Balsamic Glazed Roast Chicken

Ingredients

• 1 free range whole chicken (approx. 1.7 Kg)
• ½ cup balsamic glaze
• 2 Tblsps rosemary, chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• ¼ cup butter, softened
• ½ cup fig preserve
• 3 fresh figs
• Salt and pepper to taste

Method

• Preheat your Belling oven to 200°C in a conventional function, or 180°C fanned. Remove the packaging from the chicken and pat dry.
• In a small bowl combine the butter, half the garlic, half the herbs, and stir to combine. Using your fingers, separate the skin covering the chicken breasts from the meat of the breasts and rub butter between the skin and the chicken breast meat, evenly over both breasts. Pull skin taught to cover the breasts.
• In a small sauce pan, combine the fresh figs, fig preserve, all the remaining herbs, salt and pepper, and the balsamic glaze. Bring the mixture to a simmer and ensure it is syrupy and sticky like a glaze. Remove from the heat.
• Place chicken onto the roasting rack with the wing side up. Baste with a bit of the balsamic glaze. Roast with wing side up for 15 minutes.
• Using tongs or wads of paper towels, flip the chicken so it is sitting with the opposite wing up in the roasting rack and roast for another 15 minutes and baste with glaze.
• Flip once more, so that the breast side is facing up - and roast bird for 30 minutes, or until the breast meat registers 160 degrees and the dark thigh meat registers 175. Continue to baste the bird with the balsamic fig sauce until it comes from the oven.
• Remove from oven and tent chicken with foil. Let rest for 10 minutes before carving.

Serves 8

Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 1 hour 40 minutes

This recipe and 11 more were cooked all at once in a Belling Richmond. Check to see how we did it.