Basics of Baking Chicken

 You will need:

A whole chicken Buy a good bird--organic or corn fed.

A Pyrex baking dish that has room for the chicken and a bunch of potatoes and veggies.

Salt and pepper

Olive oil

Potatoes, any variety

A red onion or two

Garlic--preferably the elephant kind, but any will do

Carrots

a lemon

Frozen peas

Instructions:

(1) Remove chicken from packaging and put in Pyrex dish. Salt and pepper chicken and stick it in the fridge, preferably overnight. A few hours will do. Remove half an hour before you put in oven.

(2) Fill a large pot with water. Rinse the potatoes and carrots, cutting the ends off the carrots and any flaw off the potatoes. Put salt and the potatoes in the cold water and let boil. Once they've been boiling long enough to slightly soften the potatoes, add the carrots. Poke the potatoes; they should be soft enough to slice but not mooshy. Drain and rinse with cold water. 

(3) Peel the garlic--I used around ten cloves--and the onion. Put in a large bowl with a tablespoon or two of olive oil. Add the drained potatoes and carrots. If the potatoes are large, slice in half. Toss in olive oil.

(4)  Briefly remove chicken from Pyrex dish--put it on a plate or a cutting board. Put the veggies in the Pyrex dish. 

(5) Rinse a large lemon; cut off the stem and punch a few holes in it with a sharp knife. Push lemon into chicken

(6) Put the chicken on top of the veggies  and slide all into pre-heated oven at 190º Celsius (375º Fahrenheit).

(7) After about half an hour, remove chicken and turn it upside down, so that the part that's been sitting on the veggies is exposed to the heat.

(8) About twenty minutes later, add peas and put chicken rightside up again. 

In a few more minutes (depending on size of bird) your chicken is ready to eat: 

 

Enjoy with a glass of Prosecco or a light white wine.