South Indian style Whole Roasted Chicken

This South-Indian style whole roasted chicken was our Sunday Grilling fix. The chicken was just about perfect with a crispy skin and perfectly juicy and succulent inside. You don’t have to roast a whole chicken this way to use this recipe. The beauty of this roasted chicken is in the marinade. You can use the marinade to soak individual breast pieces (these are the best and my favourite) and grill them or marinate regular chopped chicken pieces before making a curry out of them. I really like this marinade. The curry leaves and whole black peppercorns add a nice south-indian punch to this grilled chicken. I am going to be using this marinade in many other ways surely.

That's Jagan taking the roasted chicken out of the oven

Chicken is Jagan’s first love, roasted chicken his best buddy. He wanted to do a restaurant style roasted chicken where the chicken rotates inside the oven and the juices drip down slowly. His theory is that this way, the chicken gets cooked evenly and in its own juices. It did work beautifully but I think it would have worked equally well if we had just placed it on a tray. However you choose to do it, just make sure to cover your tray with aluminium foil before you start grilling. It saves all the clean-up time. It would be a good idea to make a sauce or gravy with the remaining marinade to go with the grilled chicken. When you roast the whole chicken, the inside stays slightly bland and a sauce or dip would be a nice addition here.

Prep time: 10 mins
Cooking time: 40 mins
Serves: 5

Ingredients

Chicken – 1 whole with skin, cleaned

Marinade

Shallots/Sambar onions – 6 peeled
Ginger – 3 inch piece, peeled and roughly chopped
Garlic – 12 cloves, peeled
Green chillies – 4, roughly chopped
Whole black Peppercorns – 2 tbsp
Curry leaves – 1 stem
Red chilli powder – 2 tbsp
Turmeric powder – ½ tsp
Lemon juice – from 1 lemon
Salt to taste
Water – 2-3 tbsp

Method

1.      Clean the chicken and make slits in the chicken’s skin, so that you can rub the marinade under the skin. You could make slits in the chicken’s flesh at places so that the marinade sinks in.

2.      Grind together all ingredients under “Marinade” with a little water to a paste, except red chilli powder, turmeric powder, salt and lemon juice. Add these to the ground paste and mix well. Add water one spoon at a time to make a thick marinade.

3.      Rub the marinade all over the chicken and under the skin. You may have a little marinade left over which you can use to baste the chicken while it roasts. Set aside. Let the chicken marinate for 1 hour.

4.      In the meantime, cover the crumb tray in aluminium foil so that the drippings don’t dirty the tray. After roasting, just remove foil and throw away. No clean-up necessary. Preheat oven to 200 C.

5.      Once the chicken is marinated, use the rotisserie rod that comes with the oven to skewer the whole chicken. Use the little screwed metal fasteners on either side to secure the chicken in place. Carefully place the skewered chicken on the rotisserie clamp and set to rotisserie mode. Grill for 40 minutes. Remove on to a plate. Let cool slightly. Use Kitchen shears to cut into pieces. Serve hot with lemon wedges and sliced onions.

Notes

1.      To make a sauce/dip with the marinade, add some yogurt to the remaining marinade and mix well. Heat up just a teaspoon of oil and add this marinade mixture, a little water and simmer till the raw smell vanishes and the sauce has thickened to the right consistency.