You'll need a large casserole pot with a fitted lid. It needs an hour and a half to two hours in the oven – in other words, just enough time to walk the dogs.
1 lemon
1 fat free-range or organic chicken
4 sprigs fresh rosemary
Extra-virgin olive oil
300g pancetta lardons
1 bunch young carrots, scrubbed clean but not peeled
4 small parsnips, scrubbed clean but not peeled
12 new potatoes, scrubbed clean but not peeled
20 shallots or raw pickling onions, peeled and left whole
10 peeled cloves garlic
6 sprigs fresh thyme
Coarsely ground black pepper and sea salt
½ bottle good white wine
½ tbsp seeded mustard
100g chopped flat-leaf parsley
Heat the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4. Make a few deep incisions in the lemon but don't cut right through so it falls to pieces. Stuff the chicken with the lemon and the rosemary, and rub extra-virgin olive oil all over the skin.
Put a little olive oil in a large casserole pot on top of the stove and heat gently. Add the lardons and cook until crisp. Stir in the carrots, parsnips, potatoes, onions, garlic, thyme and shallots, coating them all in the oil, add the wine and bring to a boil. Turn off the heat, place the bird on top of the vegetables, cover with the lid and place in the oven for an hour. Remove the lid, return to the oven and cook for another half-hour, so the chicken skin browns and hopefully becomes crisp.
Lift the chicken from the pot and transfer to a warm plate, arrange the vegetables on large serving platter, top with the chicken and keep warm.
Reduce the cooking liquid until quite thick, then stir in the mustard and season to taste. Stir in the parsley, spoon over the bird and proceed to the table.
Carve the bird at the table: remove the legs first, then carve off the breasts. If you are not confident of dividing the chicken at the table, you could quite easily do it in the kitchen before spooning over the sauce, but the dish then loses a bit of dramatic effect.