Greek Roast Chicken - Easy Mediterranean Sunday Roast

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• Greek roast chicken with authentic flavours
• How to prepare Greek roast chicken
• The most amazing Greek marinade
• Must-have accompaniments with Greek roast chicken
• How to make the best Greek gravy
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• Greek roast chicken recipe

This delicious and easy Greek roast chicken is the perfect answer for a long lazy lunch around a table with friends and family. Pick up a plump chicken, brine it to elevate the flavours and slather the most delicious greek marinade over and oven roast until golden brown and crisp.

Match this with some greek style potatoes and some grilled slices of aubergine with tomato all beautifully gratinated with crumbly feta along with a simple Greek gravy and you have a real Greek roast chicken feast.

This is not your traditional Sunday roast, although you could eat this all year round, this is a summer feast for balmy warm days. To set the scene, imagine you are on the Aegean coast in a vine-covered taverna with light linen sails that dapple the summer sun with cloudy shade. The rugged rocky mountains, green with olive trees sit behind you and the bright white pebbly beach drops away in front of you with the vistas of the cobalt blue sea. Fishing boats bob up and down in and out of sight and the waves speckle with the most beautiful golden Mediterranean sun that gently lap onto the beach. You are sitting around a rustic old oak table with pitchers of retsina wine and a whole roasted chicken that is dripping with flavours of Greece sits in the middle. The smell of smoky paprika, citrus, garlic and the most amazing aromatic oregano permeate the air and you hear what sounds like the soft scrunching of tracing paper as the host carves through the golden-brown skin of your juicy Greek roast chicken. If you just close your eyes, you can almost touch this even from the comfort of your very own home.

Greek roast chicken with authentic flavours

Creating this “al forno” feast is easy too as apart from a little brining, the oven does all the work. The flavours come from a simple but highly flavoured marinade of warming paprika mixed into luscious golden olive oil with the hit of lemons, garlic and a sweet kiss of runny honey. The bold and beautiful flavour of greek oregano which is perhaps the best type of oregano in the world adds the unmistakable aromatic flavour that Greece does best. Once the chicken is cooked we make a Greek gravy with all the juices left in the dish by adding a touch of white wine, chicken stock and olives.

How to prepare Greek roast chicken

Start with brining a whole chicken to add flavour and to help keep the bird juicy and succulent. This process doesn’t have to take so long either and you can leave this stage out entirely but if you bring a large pan of water to the boil (enough to cover the bird) with about 135g or ½ a cup of salt, a couple of tablespoons of sugar and a couple of tablespoons of vinegar and a bay leaf then place your whole chicken inside and simmer for 20 minutes before turning the heat off entirely, you can leave it for even as little as 45 minutes or up to as much as 4 hours. Boiling the brine helps the salt penetrate further into the skin of the bird. It is a little extra work but the difference in taste and texture is noticeable.

The most amazing Greek marinade

Once the chicken is brined giving it as much time as you have available then you apply the marinade by brushing it liberally all over the bird. To help the chicken cook in the oven, chop some onion, celery and carrots up and place in a roasting dish to act as a trestle for the chicken to sit on top. This will allow the air to circulate around the chicken better and also add flavour to the gravy which we simply create at the end. Basting the chicken every now and again whilst it cooks in the oven will help the meat stay moist. The cooking time for a roast chicken is 20 minutes per 500g at 180℃/356°F with an extra 20 minutes at 200℃ to brown it at the end. Brining the bird first in a hot brine will reduce the cooking time in the oven, so if you brine the bird adjust the cooking time by 20 minutes less.

Must-have accompaniments with Greek roast chicken

The Greek potatoes are discs of skin on potatoes that are made like triple-cooked chips. First, boil the slices of potatoes which you cut to about 2cm thick for 8 minutes then drain and steam dry. Then shallow fry in oil in a pan in batches for a further 8 minutes. Lastly, generously salt them and roast them in the oven for a final 30 minutes. In Greece, these potatoes are served everywhere and are just delicious even if you just want them by themselves dipped into garlic or herby mayonnaise.

Sliced aubergines topped with tomato and feta is another tasty addition to a simple Greek feast. Slice the tops off the aubergines and cut lengthways into equal slices. Bring a griddle pan (you can just use a normal frying pan if you don’t have a griddle pan) to high heat and place the aubergine slices in without oil for a few minutes on each side to give them some nice char lines. Take them off the heat and mix some tomato passata with some tomato purée and spoon over the slices. Crumble over the feta and drizzle with a little olive oil and set them aside until you are ready to place them in the oven for about 15 minutes to brown the cheese.

How to make the best Greek gravy

After the chicken is cooked it is best to let it rest to firm up for about 20 to 30 minutes at least. So when you take the chicken out of the oven, you can put the Greek potatoes in first followed by the aubergines. When the chicken is resting and the rest is in the oven you can focus on making a very tasty yet simple Greek gravy.

All the juices, cooked vegetables and marinade that are left in the roasting dish make the perfect base for a flavoursome sauce. Remove some of the vegetables and mash the rest and scrape up all the pieces from the bottom of the dish. Any burnt bits just add to the flavour. Put the dish onto the hob and melt in a large knob of butter. Add a tablespoon of flour and stir in, this will thicken the Greek gravy.

Pour in a glass of white wine which will bubble and sizzle away. Keep stirring the gravy and add a pre-prepared jug of chicken stock.

The texture because of the flour will be right straight away, however it does need to bubble away a little so that the flavours intensify. Add some runny honey for sweetness and a little more seasoning and paprika and cinnamon for a deeper flavour. Lower the heat on the hob to a low heat so that it just gently simmers and add some black olives just for a little more Greekness.

Once the chicken has rested and the potatoes and aubergine are done, place the chicken back on the sauce in the dish and put the potatoes and aubergines in side dishes and serve. If you have fresh oregano leftover and a little bit of feta, these make a great garnish.

All that is left is to enjoy, close your eyes and imagine Greece.

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