Ring the changes with four-hour slow-roasted whole chicken

Daily Maverick

07-05-2025

I roast my chickens for 90 minutes, give or take. Have done for decades. But it's never too late to try another way, and ring the changes. Welcome to the four-hour roast chicken.
If you're brave, you'll roast this chicken for the entire four hours. But that entails keeping the oven at a temperature of around 120–140°C, and not being tempted to spike the heat up to 160°C or 170°C.
I can vouch for the fact that this is a strong temptation. I nearly caved a couple of times. But I had allocated four hours, so I knew I had enough time. I saw it through.
The result: a golden bird preening with beautiful skin, succulent flesh cooked all the way to the bone, and so much flavour, which is the biggest bonus of all the slow cooking.
There were a lot of juices, which I siphoned off into a saucepan to reduce and then thicken with cornflour. Every nuance of flavour from the baste and seasoning could be tasted in that gravy, as well as the intrinsic flavour of the chicken itself, of course. There was something of umami about the sauce.
There was an additional period of preparation, also involving four hours: I dry-brined the bird by mixing together 3 Tbsp of Italian dried herbs, 2 Tbsp cornflour and 1 Tbsp each of Maldon salt and black pepper. This I rubbed into the skin all over the chicken. Then it went into the fridge on a plate for four hours, which encourages the skin to crisp while also imparting the flavour of the herbs to the chicken early on.
Then, before roasting it, I mixed more herbs and seasoning with ginger and garlic paste and a decent glug or two of olive oil. This was for basting the outside of the chicken.
A few things are key:
There is potential for the bird drying out too much, so I started by making that baste which I spooned under the skin and then massaged the skin above it to spread it around.
You need to put something in the cavity too. I cut a small lemon in four, and a medium onion into quarters, and shoved those inside the cavity after seasoning the inside with salt and black pepper.
And it makes sense to start with the oven high, around 200°C, just to kickstart it on its way. But it must come down to the lowest heat within 15 minutes.
Finally, it should not be covered, otherwise the slow oven will not be able to do its work in turning the skin golden brown and crisp.
But — there's always a rider, isn't there? The size of the chicken plays a role in the length of time you cook it, so if yours is a relatively small bird, you'll need to deduct some time. The chicken I roasted was about 2kg — pretty big. So this recipe is for a large chicken.
Tony's four-hour roast chicken
(Serves 4)
Ingredients
1 large chicken, about 1.8kg to 2kg
For the dry brine:
3 Tbsp of Italian dried herbs
2 Tbsp cornflour
1 Tbsp Maldon salt
1 Tbsp ground black pepper
For the baste:
3 Tbsp of Italian dried herbs
1 Tbsp Maldon salt
1 Tbsp ground black pepper
⅓ cup extra virgin olive oil
4 Tbsp La Italia ginger and garlic paste, or similar
Zest of an orange
1 Tbsp Italian dried herbs
Maldon salt to taste
Black pepper to taste
Also:
1 medium onion, quartered
1 small lemon, quartered
Kitchen string
Olive oil
Method
Rinse the chicken and pat it dry thoroughly with kitchen paper.
In a small bowl, mix the dry brine ingredients. Rub this into the skin, all over. Place the bird on a plate and refrigerate it, uncovered, for four hours.
Remove the chicken from the fridge an hour before starting to cook it, to bring it to room temperature.
Tie the tips of the drumsticks together with kitchen string, tightly.
Preheat the oven to 200°C or thereabouts.
In a bowl, mix all the baste ingredients.
Season the cavity with salt and black pepper. Dip the onion and lemon pieces in some of the baste and push them into the cavity.
Prise open the breast skin with your fingers, at the end near the cavity. Take up some of the baste with a silicone spatula, and push it slowly and carefully under the skin flap, then massage the skin above with your fingers or palm to spread the baste around. Repeat with more baste on the same side, then do the same under the skin of the opposite breast.
Season the outside of the chicken with more salt, black pepper and dried Italian herbs.
Place it in the preheated 200°C oven and roast for 15 minutes. Turn the heat down to somewhere between 100°C and 150°C and continue roasting, uncovered, for about 3 hours and 45 minutes more, or until the juices run clear when you insert a skewer right to the bone.
Note: the size of the chicken and the temperature — and the fact that ovens have temperaments and don't all behave the same — means that you have to decide when any further cooking will overcook the bird, resulting in dry meat.
Therefore, after 3 hours, start testing every 15 minutes and stop when you're satisfied.
At the start of the final hour, drizzle some olive oil all over the breast skin. Half an hour later, repeat.
Along the way, when you check the chicken's progress and can see that there's a lot of the juices, pour them off into a saucepan. When you've added the final juices at the end of the cooking time, reduce it and thicken with cornflour dissolved in water. Simmer until you're happy that the gravy is ready.
Serve with lovely roast potatoes and greens of your choice. DM