I've been rather stressed out lately, and my close pals tell me it isn't too good for my psyche. Ok. Shall take their advice, except… these few weeks are totally hectic and I'm back-to-back with trainings and meetings. July will fall in extra early this year so its going to be a busy second half of the year.

Ironic, because just a few months ago I was bitching over how boring it was to be where I was. Well, never complain about where you are.

I was checking out my archives again and then I found this set of photos… of my favourite impress-em-at-potlucks special: The Simple Baked Chicken. I got the recipe from the super cook Adeline from BLC, and have been faithfully relying upon it each time I get invited to 'contribute' a dish.

It always, always impresses.

Baked Chicken Special

Now I'm not very good at documenting recipes but this one should be blogged. So here goes my agak-agak something like that version:

Ingredients:

1 Whole Medium chicken, cleaned with feet, head and wing tips cut off
Potpourri of ROOT VEGETABLES:
2 Medium Potatoes, cleaned and cut into cubes
1/2 Small Pumpkin, cut into cubes
1 Large Green onions, cut into 8 pieces
(you can throw other types of root vegetables in, but I stick to these)
1 Whole lemon, skewered with a satay stick

Marinade:
1 small cup extra virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon paprika powder
3 tablespoons chopped chinese parsley
1 tablespoon coarsely grained black pepper

So what I do is I mix the marinade up and rub it all over the cleaned chicken (I massage it even under the skin of the chicken. Then I leave the chicken for about 4 hours in the fridge to soak up the marinade. Sometimes when I'm lazy I do this a day ahead, and the chicken gets to bathe in the marinade overnight.

When I'm ready to bake the chicken, I heat up the oven first, at about 200 degrees Celsius. I layer my baking dish with the root vegetables. Then I get the chicken out, and with whatever marinade's that dripping left, I pour it all over the vegetables. I take about 1/2 tablespoon of Himalayan Salt and rub it all over the chicken (under its skin as well), stuff the lemon into the chicken cavity, rest it on the vegetables, pour half a cup of water into the side of the baking dish (so that the vegetables won't dry up so soon… and then I chuck it into the pre-heated oven for about 45 minutes.

At 45 minutes, the bell will ring, but I don't take out the chicken immediately. I let it rest for another 10 minutes or so, take it out, cover with alumimium foil, place it into a nice basket, and I'm off to impress my buddies.

Nehehehe— Baked Chicken is a good trick to show off at potluck meets!