Pesto Roast Chicken

The Flying Chef's Note:

I came up with this one on the weekend just wanting to do something a little different from my usual roast chicken and I had some veg in the fridge I wanted to use up. I have listed below what I used but you could use anything like eggplant, yellow zucchini, large tomatoes rather than cherry or even baby carrots so feel free to play around with that. I served ours with the vegetables and also some corn on the cob’s, we are trying not to eat to many carbs in the evenings, but it would be nice paired with roasted potatoes as well.

• Total Time: 1 hrs 35 mins
• Prep Time: 5 mins
• Cook Time: 1 hrs 30 mins

Ingredients:

Servings: 4

• olive oil
• 2 kg whole chickens
• 44.37 ml basil pesto, homemade or 44.37 ml store bought basil pesto
• 4 small red onions, peeled and sliced in half
• 2 green zucchini, sliced in wedges
• 4 garlic cloves, peeled
• 200 g cheery tomatoes

Directions:

1. Pre Heat oven to moderate. Loosen skin on chicken breast by sliding your fingers between the skin and the flesh. Rub about 11/2 tablespoons of Pesto under the skin over the breast.
2. Rub the remaining 11/2 tablespoons of pesto over the outside of chicken, breast, legs and wings.
3. Place halved onions in a roasting pan drizzle about 1 tablespoon of olive oil over and place chicken on top.
4. Roast, uncovered in moderate oven for 30 Minutes.
5. Add garlic and zucchini to roasting pan, drizzle with a little extra oil and return to the oven for about 1 hour or until chicken is coked through.
6. If using cherry tomatoes add to roasting pan about 20 min’s before the end of cooking time.
7. Serve with fresh corn on the cob and roasted potatoes.

Reviews

[JanuaryBride]

Nice roast chicken...hubby was happy with the meal! I also added some potatoes, turnips and carrots to the roasting pan - all of the veggies were done after 1 hour of cooking so I removed them while the chicken roasted to perfection in 1.5 hrs (total) at 375 degrees. I used about double the pesto that the recipe called for (and even rubbed it on the chicken about 3 hrs before cooking so that it would marinate a bit) but the pesto flavor was not present in the final product. Next time I will use even more pesto and will coat the veggies in pesto too.

[Debbb]

I didn't actually follow the entire recipe; I just used the idea of the chicken & pesto. And, it was fabulous! Really nice flavour and a nice change from the traditional poultry seasoning.