This is, without a shadow of a doubt, the best roast chicken I’ve had in quite some time.

I received the recipe from a friend of mine who was kind enough to attach a photo to her email. It looked phenomenal. Hunger-inducing. Had me running out the door collecting ingredients that same afternoon.

And then I tried it for the first time and let me tell you; this is paradisiacal! For foodies and non-foodies.

Crisp and golden roast chicken with a spectacular mix of sun-dried tomatoes, garlic, butter, feta and rosemary rubbed between the meat and skin. How doesn that sound?

Words really can’t describe how good this is, but a picture is worth a thousand words, right? Okay. Let’s talk.

Ingredients:

1 whole chicken (mine was 3 pound)
4 sun-dried tomatoes (packed in oil)
2 oz butter
1/4 tsp kosher salt
5 oz feta
1 pound potatoes
2 bell peppers
1 onion
5 garlic cloves
5 rosemary sprigs
1 cup chicken broth
olive oil
salt and pepper

Directions:

Strip 3 rosemary leaves and finely chop them. Don’t you love the fresh scent of rosemary?

Put 4 big sun-dried tomatoes in a food processor and add 1 tbsp of the oil they are packed in. Flavor bomb!

Grate 1 garlic clove in with the tomatoes and blitz. Then add the chopped rosemary, 1/4 tsp salt, a pinch of pepper and the butter. Blitz more.

 
That’s not going to be all. Oh no, we’re adding one more scrumptious ingredient.
 

And that would be… feta. Break it in coarse pieces and mix it with the flavored butter.

Peel the potatoes and cut them in 1″ thick slices. De-seed and coarsely chop the peppers and onion.

 
Nothing makes a classic roast tastier than putting some flavor under the skin. Carefully loosen up the skin with your fingers but be really careful not to break it.
 

Gently push the feta mix under the skin. Flatten it and really rub it everywhere, almost like you’re massaging it into the skin.

Place a few big potato chunks on the bottom of a roasting tray.

And place the chicken right on top of them so it won’t cook in its own juices. Spread the veggies around the chicken.

Randomly put the remaining 4 (unpeeled) garlic cloves in there as well. They’ll roast inside their skin, its delicious.

Pour some oil over the chicken and vegetables.

And season the chicken and veggies with a nice sprinkling of kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper. Add the remaining rosemary sprigs.

Pour in the chicken broth. Not only does the liquid tenderize the potatoes, it also absorbs and distributes the flavors.

 
Roast the chicken at 400F˚ (200C˚). My chicken was 3 pounds. General rule of thumb is to give the chicken 20 minutes per pound + 15 minutes extra.
 
For me that was a total of 75 minutes. Core temperature measurements are more accurate and should be 165°F (74Cº). Let the chicken rest for 10 minutes, during this time the core temperature will rise.
 

I don’t need much to be happy. Just this…