Christmas Special: Stuffed Roasted Chicken

Folks

The festive season: get into the Christmas spirit. The traditional Christmas table is always crowned with a roast turkey. What if you have family of 2 or 4? Why not consider chicken as an alternative to the traditional turkey Christmas dinner?

So Here it is my preparation Stuffed Roasted Chicken.

Chickpeas Stuffed Roasted Chicken with Hummus

I am preparing this in Convection Microwave Oven. Basically we'll need Grill mode for crispy outer crust with Microwave to cook meat evenly and convection to circulate hot air.

Let's get it started

Ingredients

Chicken Full Bird with skin well cleaned and washed.
Basil leaves a handful
Thyme leaves a bunch
Garlic powder 2 serving spoons
Olive Oil
Salt
Bunch of garlic full Bulb
One orange with hard crust.
One fresh lemon, get a big one
Black pepper
White pepper
One big Onion and Sweet Potato.
White Wine 100 ML.
Salted Butter 100 gm
Paprika 2 tea spoon,
Chickpeas 200 gm soaked and boiled in salted water.

Procedure

To start place the chicken on chopping board.
Season the butter by adding 1 tea spoon of garlic powder, pinch of salt and black pepper.
Now we have to get into the skin. Lift the skin from lower part of breast, there we have two cavities fill both with seasoned butter and push up by pressing towards wings as shown in pic. This helps chicken get rich flavor and moisture is retained.
If any butter is left fill it under skin in other parts.
Now rub olive oil on full bird. Followed by salt, pepper, white pepper, garlic powder, some lemon zest. Give it a nice massage. Do it on both side, so that we have full spice coated bird. Put same spices inside caucus as per your taste.
Time to prepare stuffing. Pour all boiled warm chickpeas in a bowl, add orange zest or shavings, thyme leaves, chopped basil, black pepper, salt to taste, squeeze half lemon juice, some olive oil. Mix it well.
Stuff the chicken with chickpeas filling and seal it with orange.
Preheat oven @ 180. At the same time take your baking tray, place garlic bulb cut in half, Onion cut in quarters, and big chunks of sweet potato. Idea here is to prepare a bed for chicken so that it is not touching the baking tray.
Place the chicken on the onion, garlic, potato bed. Pour white wine from side of the tray. We are adding this to keep chicken moist and for some fruity sour flavor.
Time to roast. Place tray in oven for 30 Min on Grill + Microwave mode on one side breast facing up.
After 30 min take chicken out flip it so now back is up. Use a spoon to pour some of the juices in tray on chicken again.
Roast it on same setting for another 25 Min.
Take chicken out let it rest for 5 min on chopping board.
Lets prepare for a dip. Use the left over chickpeas filling for making hummus. Blend the chickpeas stuffing with some yogurt, olive oil, mint leaves and the juice of the baked orange and garlic bulb. Add salt to taste.
Viola... We are ready. Cut the pieces as you like serve. Pour some juices from the baking tray.