Christmas chicken with apple, cranberry and lemon stuffing balls
Christmas chicken with apple, cranberry and lemon stuffing balls. If you like it traditional at Christmas, but also want to serve something that works fantastically in a hot Australian summer, this is the perfect recipe for you.
The stuffing is fresh and light with tart cranberries, apple and lemon and the fragrance of sage. The extra stuffing is made into balls that end up like little savoury Christmas puddings to serve with your chicken. This stuffing is perfect for matching a roast chicken with salads in the summer season, so there’s no need for wintery sides like roast potatoes. If you’re feeding a crowd, roast 2 chickens at the same time!
Serves
4-6
Ingredients
- 1 whole Lilydale free range chicken (approx. 1.6kg)
- salt and pepper, to season
- olive oil, to drizzle
- salad greens and lemon wedges, to serve
- Cranberry, apple and lemon stuffing balls
- 150 g butter
- 1 brown onion, finely chopped
- 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
- 2 apples, grated
- 10 fresh sage leaves, roughly chopped, plus a few extra whole leaves to serve
- ½ cup roughly chopped parsley, plus extra to garnish
- grated rind of and juice of 1 lemon
- 400 g fresh sourdough breadcrumbs (about 7 slices)
- 50 g dried cranberries, plus extra to garnish
- 1 tsp chicken stock powder
- 1 egg
- salt and black pepper, to taste
Method
- For the stuffing, heat a small saucepan over medium heat and add the butter, onion and garlic. Fry for 4-5 minutes until the onion and garlic are lightly browned. Add the apple, sage, parsley, lemon zest and juice, sourdough, dried cranberries, chicken stock powder and egg and season well with salt and pepper. Mix well.
- Heat your oven to 180C fan. Rub the chicken all over with salt and drizzle with olive oil. Stuff the cavity of the chicken with about a third of the stuffing. Tie the legs of the chicken together to enclose the stuffing. Place the chicken into an oiled roasting tray and roast for 75 minutes. Roll the remaining stuffing into balls and roast in a small separate oiled roasting tray in the last 30 minutes of the chicken cooking. Drizzle the balls generously with olive oil. Serve the chicken with the stuffing balls, lemon wedges and any salad greens you like, scattered with extra parsley and cranberries, and drizzled with olive oil.
