Method
- Remember to remove your chicken legs out of the packaging, pat dry before cooking.
- Pre heat your oven to 200°C temperature fan assisted or 215°C without a fan.
- Season the chicken just prior to roasting.
- Choose a large, heavy based roasting tray, ideally with deep sides and handles for easy movement.
- Massage a little softened butter under the skin of the jointed chicken then 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 onto the tray.
- Place the legs skin side up onto the trivet which should line the base of the tray.
- Place in centre of oven and roast for 40 minutes reaching a core temperature of minimum 75°C.
- Remove from oven and pop onto a clean tray and keep warm by covering with a sheet of tin foil then resting for a a few moments, leaving the roasted vegetables in the tray for the gravy.
- For the gravy I make up 300 ml of essential cuisine chicken stock, then deglaze roasting tray with this stock stirring all the caramelized juices from the tray, then pass through a fine sieve pushing all the juices from the vegetables into a clean sauce pan, bring to the simmer and thicken if required by whisking in a teaspoon of corn flour mixed with a little cold water and reduce till you reach a rich glossy gravy.