Heather honey chicken

This Scottish roast chicken is basted with a sweet honey glaze made from a mixture of mustard, curry powder and local honey made from heather flowers found around the Scottish moorlands. Reddish-brown with a pungent, slightly bitter and smoky flavour and with floral aromas, heather honey is truly one of a kind. Another unusual characteristic is its gel-like consistency that only liquefies upon stirring. Once used to make ale and mead, heather honey is now more commonly used in Scottish whisky and desserts. Due to its limited availability in Australia, we’ve substituted heather honey with manuka honey, another strong, aromatic variety.

Credit: Chris Chen

• serves

  4

• prep

  15 minutes

• cook

  1:30 hour

• difficulty

  Easy

Ingredients

• 1 x 1.7 kg whole chicken
• 2 onions, cut into wedges
• 6 rosemary sprigs
• 100 ml olive oil, plus extra, to brush
• 90 g (¼ cup) manuka honey (see Note)
• 1½ tbsp Dijon mustard
• 1 tbsp curry powder
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• mashed potatoes, to serve

Resting time 10 minutes

Instructions

Preheat oven to 180°C. Rinse chicken under cold running water and pat dry with paper towel.

Scatter onion and rosemary over the base of a large casserole pan with a lid, drizzle with 2½ tablespoons of oil, and season with salt and pepper.

Combine remaining 2½ tablespoons of oil, honey, mustard, curry powder and garlic in a small bowl. Whisk to combine and season. Coat generously all over chicken, then place on top of onions and rosemary. Cover and roast for 30 minutes, then remove lid and roast for 1 hour, brushing with extra oil if too dark, or until chicken is golden brown and the juices run clear when the thickest part of a thigh is pierced.

Cover chicken loosely with foil and set aside to rest for 10 minutes. Carve and serve with mashed potatoes.

Note

• Manuka honey is a strong-flavoured, dark honey. Substitute with any dark, aromatic honey.

 

Photography Chris Chen. Food Preparation Phoebe Wood. Styling Vivien Walsh

As seen in Feast magazine, September 2014, Issue 35.

Cook's Notes

Oven temperatures are for conventional; if using fan-forced (convection), reduce the temperature by 20˚C. | We use Australian tablespoons and cups: 1 teaspoon equals 5 ml; 1 tablespoon equals 20 ml; 1 cup equals 250 ml. | All herbs are fresh (unless specified) and cups are lightly packed. | All vegetables are medium size and peeled, unless specified. | All eggs are 55-60 g, unless specified.