Have you ever tried brining a bird? You can check out my Christmas turkey brine here. But I thought, why not try brining a bird for a beautiful Sunday roast? And seeing as I didn’t want the last of my delicious blood oranges to go to waste, I came up with this delicious recipe for tea-brined blood orange roast chicken – and it didn’t disappoint.
I was surprised when I posted images of my recipe in progress that some ladies out there had never roasted a whole chicken. I think roast chicken is my favourite kind of roast meat… I mean, I’ve shared recipes for:
So now you’ll find a total of five delicious recipes for roasting a whole chicken, now that I have published my recipe for tea-brined blood orange roast chicken!
TEA-BRINED BLOOD ORANGE ROAST CHICKEN
1 chicken
1 brown onion
1/2 bulb of fennel
2 blood oranges
1 litre of blood orange juice
1 tbsp smoked paprika
10-12 baby potatoes
4 bay leaves
1 red chilli
40 grams of sea salt
2 tbsp of cumin
BRINE
4 tea bags
2 litres of water
1 tbsp of coriander seeds
1/2 tbsp of fennel seeds
110 grams of honey
1 blood orange
1/2 bunch of thyme
In a saucepan, bring the water to the boil. Add the teabags and steep for approximately 10 minutes. Remove the teabags.
In a small pan, dry roast the coriander and fennel seeds and toss until fragrant. Remove from the heat and place them into a small bowl to stop them from cooking.
Add honey and salt to the tea mixture and stir to dissolve. Add the spices and allow the liquid to cool completely before submerging the chicken in the brine and place the blood orange slices and thyme on top. Cover and refrigerate overnight or approximately 24 hours.
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.
In a small saucepan, reduce the blood orange juice by half. Allow to cool slightly before adding the cumin, paprika, chilli and set aside in a bowl.
Toss the potatoes, wedges of fennel, blood orange and onion in a little salt, oil and thyme before placing at the bottom of a cast iron pot.
Drain the chicken from the brine and pat dry with paper towels. Place a few slices of blood orange, 1/2 the onion and a bay leaf into the cavity. Then place the chicken on top of the prepared veggies.
Drizzle some oil and salt over the chicken and massage into the skin. Then drizzle over some of the blood orange juice mix and pour the remaining around the chicken. Place the lid on the pot and pop it into the oven.
Baste the chicken with the juices every 20 minutes and bake for 1 hour with the lid on and then a further 20 minutes with the lid off – or until the chicken juices run clear and the skin is crispy. Remove from the oven and allow to rest for 10-15 minutes – serve hot!
Have you ever whipped up a recipe from my blog? I would love for you to let me know…So I don’t feel as if I am just writing all this stuff down for nothing… If you choose to whip up one of my recipes , then I would love for you to share it on social media, and don’t forget to use the hashtag #goodfoodweek.
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