6 slices white bread or brioche crust removed (crumbed)
350 ml whole milk
½ large white onion
4 x cloves studded into the onion
2 x bay leaf
10 peppercorns
1 x sprig thyme
1 x clove garlic
50 g cold diced butter
Roast Chicken with Traditional Bread Sauce
Remember to remove your bird out of the packaging, pat dry and bring to room temperature
Pre heat your oven to 200 oc temperature fan assisted or 215 oc without a fan
Season the bird just prior to roasting
Choose a large, heavy based roasting tray, ideally with deep sides and handles for easy movement
Rub with a little olive oil & season with good quality fine sea salt
Make a trivet by roughly chopping equal amounts of onion, carrot and celery or my preferred choice of celeriac, the root of the celery plus a bay leaf, sprig of thyme and a few black peppercorns, another nice addition can be a lemon cut in half and popped into the birds cavity
Place the bird breast up onto the trivet which should line the base of the tray
Place in centre of oven and roast for 20 minutes then reduce the temperature to 180 oc then continue roasting for 20 minutes per 500g reaching a core temperature of minimum 75 oc
Remove from oven and pop onto a clean tray and keep warm by covering with a sheet of tin foil then resting for a minimum of 20 minutes before carving, leaving the roasted vegetables in the tray for the gravy
Bread Sauce
Infuse the milk with all the ingredients except the bread and butter
Gently warm to just below boiling point
Remove from heat and pass the flavoured milk onto the breadcrumbs in a clean saucepan
Cook out gently until slightly thickens over a low heat
Whisk in cold butter to finish and serve with roast chicken, turkey or white game birds
