A succulent buttery sage and onion roast chicken

You'll love this scrumptiously succulent sage and onion roast chicken. It's perfect for a Sunday roast.

As regular readers will know, I’ve recently been sent a Bosch Serie 8 single oven to test at home and share my experiences with a set of weekly posts.

In week 1, I shared an overview of the most exciting features the oven has to offer, in week 2, I tested out how the Serie 8 supports hassle-free family cooking BoschAssist by making a Courgette and Black Olive Pasta Gratin, in week 3, I trialled PerfectBake with some Lime and White Chocolate muffins.

And this week, I've been using the PerfectRoast function to create a scrumptiously succulent sage and onion roast chicken for a Sunday roast.

Perfect Roast

Who doesn't love a roast dinner? I think there's something really special about sitting down as a family to enjoy a Sunday roast. For us, it's the most leisurely meal of the week, when we can take our time, catch up on the week's events, and simply enjoy each other's company. I love how the laid-back atmosphere and abundance of good, hearty food give the whole meal a celebratory feel that's unique to the weekend.

There's definitely an art to cooking a great Sunday roast, and achieving that perfect balance of tender, succulent meat and crispy skin isn't easy. And as we all know, when you've got to keep your eye on other elements of the meal at the same time, producing the perfect roast can be quite a challenge.

Cook your joint for too long, and you end up with dry meat; don't cook it for long enough, and the skin doesn't crisp up, not to mention the risk of raw meat in the centre of the joint making the whole thing inedible!

As you can probably guess, the Serie 8 has an impressive function that takes all the strain out of cooking the perfect roast. It's rather fittingly called: PerfectRoast.

PerfectRoast works by measuring the core temperature of your food via a probe.

You simply insert the probe into your joint of meat before you start cooking, and it then takes regular, accurate temperature readings at three specific points along the probe. By taking readings at three points, you can be sure that even the very middle of your joint is being monitored and cooked correctly.

The PerfectRoast probe continues to monitor your joint's temperature throughout the cooking process, using the information it records to adjust the oven accordingly until your meat is perfectly cooked. Sounds like a seriously useful tool, doesn't it? It is!

Buttery sage and onion roast chicken

To show you just how fabulous the PerfectRoast function is in action, I made this wonderfully buttery sage and onion roast chicken. Here's how to prepare it.

Instructions

Place the chicken in an ovenproof dish.

Put the garlic, sage and onion in the cavity.

Slather the chicken inside and out with butter.

If using the Bosch Serie 8, insert the meat probe through the thickest part of the meat, avoiding the cavity.

Turn the chicken breast side down in the tray.

If you're using a standard oven, you'll need to pre-heat to 210C/410F, but with the Bosch Serie 8, you can use PerfectRoast to take all the guesswork out of cooking - in fact it couldn't be easier.

Having prepared your roast, simply pop it into the oven, and attach the probe's cable to the socket on the inside oven wall. Then use the BoschAssist function via the touchscreen control to tell the oven what kind of dish you want to cook.

In keeping with Bosch's aim to combine simplicity of use with time-saving technology, the Serie 8 is supported by a free companion app, HomeConnect, which you can use to set the oven remotely via your smartphone.

Just like that, the oven gets started, setting the temperature automatically and monitoring the core temperature of the chicken via the probe.

Bake at 210C/410F for 25 minutes, then turn the chicken breast side up. If you're using the Bosch Seri 8, an alarm will sound and it will tell you when it is time to do this.

Bake for a further 25-45 minutes until the core temp reaches 85C/185F at the deepest point, the skin is crisp and golden, the inner flesh is white with no pinkness anywhere, and the juices run clear.

Spoon some of the buttery juices back over the top of the chicken, then transfer to a serving platter, cover with foil and leave to rest for 15 minutes.

I dressed my platter with pan-fried sprouts with sage, and served with roast potatoes, boiled carrots, and a gravy made from the remaining juices in the roasting pan.

Even more to the PerfectRoast experience

The Serie 8 oven also has a steam function, which adds a whole extra level of tenderness to roast joints while also helping to deliver perfectly crisp skin. As with all the Serie 8 programmes, you access the steam function via the touchscreen control, although with BoschAssist, the level of Steam is decided for you.

The control panel then instructs you to push up the cover and fill the water tank.

The steam function won't operate unless you've filled the tank, and knows if there isn't enough water, so there's no chance of boiling dry and causing any damage.

Here's the finished result; a perfectly cooked sage and onion roast chicken for a Sunday roast, with crisp skin, succulent meat - and no guesswork.

Now while we all love a Sunday roast, none of us rush to volunteer for the job of cleaning the oven afterwards. The long cooking time can make all that grease really burnt-on, and a serious scrubbing session isn't exactly the ideal way to spend a lazy Sunday afternoon.

Thankfully the Serie 8 has come to our rescue, with it's pyrolitic self-cleaning function.

Select the pyrolitic self-cleaning function via the touchscreen control, fill the water tank as instructed, and everything else is done for you. The oven heats up to the required temperature to burn off all dirt and grime; once it's done and cooled down, you're left with a little bit of ash which is quick and easy to wipe away. In addition to the obviously wonderful benefit of being able to avoid scrubbing, I also hugely appreciate the fact that there's no need for heavy chemical cleaning products.

I'm loving the Serie 8's PerfectRoast function. It's just brilliant for taking the stress out of a Sunday roast, and removes that whole ‘is it cooked?' dilemma. In my tests, it has produced excellent results with minimal effort every time, making our family roasts feel even more special.

Could PerfectRoast help you make a succulent Sunday roast to be proud of?

If you'd like to print this recipe to try, click PRINT below!

This is a commissioned post for Bosch.

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