A whole chicken goes well with the Easter table.
Lemon and garlic season the chicken. Mari Moilanen
Broiler is Finns’ favorite meat both on everyday and on holidays. This food influencer Mari Moilanen chicken dish is perfect for the Easter table. It’s easy to make and still festive.
Don’t worry unnecessarily about cooking a whole chicken. The important thing is to taste it properly.
Moilanen’s Easter food is seasoned with rosemary, lemon and garlic. Spread the lemon-garlic butter all over the surface of the chicken. Moilanen advises that, for example, grilled or pan-roasted green asparagus tastes great with chicken.
Moilanen butterflies a whole chicken, i.e. cuts the backbone, which allows the chicken to be pressed flat. In this way, different parts of the chicken are best cooked at the same time. Butterflied chicken can be prepared in the oven or, weather permitting, also on the grill.
You get the most flavor in chicken when you rub seasoned butter on its surface – and also under the skin. Good flavor combinations with chicken are lemon, garlic and fresh herbs, but also ras el hanout butter, which takes the taste world of the Easter meal in the direction of the Middle East.
A whole chicken in the oven
(for 4 people)
1 (about 1.2 kg) whole chicken
1 ½ teaspoons of salt
2 tablespoons of olive oil
Seasoned butter:
50 g room temperature butter
3 cloves of garlic
3 bushy sprigs of rosemary
Zest of 1 lemon
In addition:
4 whole garlic cloves
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 small lemon
sprigs of rosemary
1. Bring the chicken to room temperature 30 minutes before cooking.
2. Cut the butter into a bowl. Grate the garlic cloves and the yellow zest of the lemon. Chop the rosemary and mix all the ingredients together.
3. Wipe the chicken dry. Turn it back side up and use sturdy scissors to cut on both sides of the spine to remove the spine. Rub the salt on the surface of the chicken.
4. Carefully insert your finger at the neck of the chicken between the skin and the breast. Move your finger so that the skin comes off the meat. Fill the resulting space with spices. Rub the rest of the butter on the surface of the chicken. Fold the wings back and tie the legs with string if necessary.
5. Heat the oil in an oven-proof pan. Fry the chicken in it, breast side down, until the skin is browned, 3–5 minutes.
6. Cut the garlic in half with the skin on. Put them in the pan with the chicken. Drizzle oil over the garlic.
7. Put the pan in a 225-degree oven and cook the chicken for 25 minutes first. Meanwhile, slice the lemon.
8. Take the pan out of the oven, turn the chicken breast side up. If the garlics feel soft, take them out at this stage and keep them warm under foil.
9. Add the lemon slices to the pan. Continue cooking for another 10-15 minutes until the internal temperature of the chicken is 75 degrees. Garnish with rosemary sprigs.