Low-FODMAP perfect roast chicken and potatoes with gravy

Low-FODMAP | Gluten-Free
Feeds the family
Notes on garlic and onion: garlic and onion are not for low-FODMAP eating, but for flavour, and should not cause issues.

Sequence of events:

1. Remove chicken from fridge 30 minutes before cooking time.
2. Prepare all the vegetables and potatoes – 30 minutes.
3. Prepare the chicken and put into the oven for 1 hour 20 minutes.
4. Prepare the potatoes for roasting for the last hour of cooking including resting time of chicken.
5. Make gravy – 15 minutes.
6. Remove chicken from the oven. Rest chicken – 15 minutes.
7. Remove potatoes from the oven.
8. Serve.

Ingredients for roast chicken

• One large free-range, high welfare, or organic chicken (about 1.6kg)
• 2 carrots
• 2 sticks of celery
• 2 onions and 1 full bulb of garlic (won’t affect fodmappers)
• Olive oil
• 1 lemon
• Bunch of mixed herbs – thyme, rosemary, bay leaves

Instructions

1. Take the chicken from the fridge half an hour before you want to cook it so it can get to room temperature.
2. Heat the oven to 240C/475F.
3. Wash and chop all the vegetables without peeling, except do peel the potatoes. If using garlic and onion, leave skins on, but break bulb apart, and cut onions in half sideways.
4. Put all the celery, garlic, onion, carrots and some of the herbs into the centre of a large roasting tray, and drizzle with oil.
5. With a fork or sharp knife, prick the lemon all over. Microwave 40 seconds (optional).
6. Put the lemon into the chicken’s cavity with the herbs.
7. Put the chicken directly on top of the vegetables, so as it cooks, the flavours absorb into the chicken.
8. Put the tray into the oven, immediately turning down the heat to 200C/400F. Cook for 1 hour and 20 minutes.
9. Parboil the potatoes for 7 minutes in a large pot of salted water. Prepare potatoes for roasting as below instructions for perfect roast potatoes.
10. Halfway through cooking, baste the chicken. If the tray looks dry, add a splash of water so they don’t burn.
11. When the cooking time is up and the chicken and potatoes are cooked (see below for potatoes), remove the tray from the oven and put the chicken onto a board, covered with tin foil and a tea towel, to rest for 15 minutes. Start making your gravy with the remnants of the cooking dish, after removing the vegetables onto the serving plate (see below).
12. Carve the chicken – remove any strings, remove the wings (break them up and add to the gravy). Cut down between the leg and the breast, cutting through the joint to pull the leg off. Repeat on the other side.
13. Cut each leg between the thigh and drumstick so you end up with four portions of darker meat. Put these on a serving platter.
14. Carve the remainder of the chicken. Pull off the fiddly bits with your hands. Turn the chicken over to get all the delicious bits from underneath.
15. Save your carcass for your next soup stock (in a freezer bag in the freezer).

Making your gravy

While the chicken is resting, make the gravy.

Ingredients for gravy

• 1 heaped dessertspoon of flour (can be corn flour or another low-FODMAP flour of your choice)
• 1 glass of red or white wine
• 1 litre of low-FODMAP chicken stock
• Roast chicken cooking pan, without the chicken on it and without the vegetables (called trivet)
• You will need a tea towel, a large jug and a sieve handy.

Instructions for gravy

1. Make up your stock as per the directions.
2. Using a spoon, remove 90 per cent of the hot fat from the tray by angling it away from you and scooping the fatty layer off the top.
3. Put the tray over a stove element on high heat.
4. Add the chicken wings if you want to.
5. Add the flour and stir it around, holding the cooking tray steady – you may want to use a tea towel here.
6. Add the wine and stir. Let it boil a few minutes.
7. Add the stock to the tray, bringing everything to the boil, scraping the goodness from the bottom of the pan as you go.
8. Reduce the heat and simmer for 10 minutes, or until the gravy looks to your taste.
9. Pour the gravy into a jug, then sieve your gravy, pushing through any lumps to the other side. Discard meat and veg leftover.

Making perfect roast potatoes

You will want to have this prepared at the same time as the chicken, since the cooking time will be about an hour.

Ingredients for roast potatoes

• 1.5kg potatoes of your choice – best roasting potatoes are general purpose potatoes (like Yukon Gold)
• Red wine vinegar
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 1 bunch fresh rosemary
• Salt and pepper

Instructions for roast potatoes

1. Peel your potatoes.
2. Cut the potatoes so they are all evenly-ish sized. Keep the potatoes big – about two squash or golf balls size is about right, so that the inside is soft and the outside is crunchy.
3. Wash the potatoes in cold water to remove extra starch.
4. Parboil the potatoes in a large pot of salted water – usually if they are boiling solidly for 7 minutes, where the outside layer is soft but the inside layer is harder.
5. Drain out into a colander and leave to steam for 3 minutes.
6. Rough up the edges of the potatoes in the colander. This makes them crunchy later.
7. Tip the potatoes onto a large baking tray and add the olive oil.
8. Season liberally with salt and pepper.
9. Toss the potatoes in the oil so they are all coated.
10. Roast for 30 minutes, or lightly golden and mostly cooked.
11. Gently squash each potato with the masher to increase surface area.
12. Add a lug of oil into a small bowl, and pick the leaves off the stalks of rosemary.
13. Break up the garlic into the oil, leaving the cloves unpeeled. Splash in some red wine vinegar. Mix.
14. Add this flavour to the potatoes and shake the tray.
15. Put the tray back in the oven for 30 minutes or until the potatoes are crispy and bubbly. Keep an eye on them.