Roast Chicken with Gravy (MSG Free)

Ingredients
1 small free range chicken
olive oil to coat the chicken
2 garlic cloves
Salt and Pepper
1 tbsp cornflour
1/2 kg potatoes
vegetables of your choice
knob of butter

serves 2

method
Preheat the oven to 220 degrees. Coat the chicken in olive oil and rub in the salt and pepper. Cut the Garlic into small chunks and rub these into the chicken skin as well. If the chicken is tied up untie it and spread it out so the heat gets inside. Place in a deep oven proof dish that isn't too much bigger than the chicken and completely cover with foil to keep the juice from evaporating. After an hour put on the potatoes and vegetables to boil and remove the foil from the chicken to brown the skin. Cook for a further 15 minutes, then remove from the oven and cover again to rest for 15 minutes.
You should have collected a good amount of meat juices under the chicken for the gravy. Pour these into a pan and simmer with a very small amount of vegetable boiling water if needed- the gravy should consist of at least 2/3 chicken juice. Mix a level tablespoon of cornflour with a few tablespoons of water and gradually stir this into the gravy until it thickens. This gravy is nicer than any commercial gravy I have tried.
Mash the potatoes with a little butter and serve with chicken pieces and drained vegetables. Cover with gravy.

migraine triggers
the great thing about this recipe is that it creates its own stock. Pre migraines I used Bisto granules to make gravy, then because they include MSG I switched to traditional Bisto gravy powder. However this contains onion powder so I developed the method above, which is actually nicer than either. The only drawback is that it doesn't go as far if you are feeding a lot of people.