Five-spice roast chicken

Your ingredients

Get ready: Deep tray, roasting rack, brush, oven gloves and food thermometer.

• 🍗1 spatchcocked chicken, about 1.8 kg
• 🥣2 tsp salt
• 🥣¾ tsp five-spice powder
• 🥣¼ tsp garlic granules
• 🌶️¼ tsp ground white pepper
• 🥣1 tsp dark soy sauce, for seasoning
• 🍯1 tbsp honey
• 🥣½ tsp dark soy sauce, for the glaze
• 💧Water, for the roasting tray

Let’s make it

1. Season the chicken

   Pat the spatchcocked chicken dry without washing it. Mix salt, five-spice, garlic granules and white pepper. Rub half inside, then rub 1 tsp dark soy over the skin and add the remaining dry seasoning.

2. Rest in the fridge

   Set chicken on a rack in a deep tray on the lowest fridge shelf, away from ready-to-eat food. Refrigerate for 12–24 hours. Clean hands and surfaces after raw chicken.

3. Start the roast

   Heat the oven to 220°C conventional or 200°C fan. Put some water in the roasting tray below the rack. Roast chicken skin-side up for 15 minutes.

4. Lower the heat

   Reduce to 180°C conventional or 160°C fan and roast for another 20 minutes. Top up tray water carefully if it dries out.

5. Glaze and check

   Mix honey with the remaining ½ tsp dark soy. Brush on half, roast for 5 minutes, then brush again and raise back to the first oven temperature for about 5 minutes. Check thick breast and thigh meat away from bone reaches 75°C for 30 seconds; roast longer as needed.

6. Rest before carving

   Rest for 10 minutes before carving with adult help. Time is a guide: the thermometer decides when your chicken is safely cooked.