Barbara Ellington, Lifestyle Editor

This Christmas, Barbara's roasted chicken will marinate overnight in a bath of vinegar, brown sugar and mushroom soy sauce, plus other natural herbs and spices. The finished product will have tiny slices of almonds on the breasts. - Photo by Nashauna Drummond

Best Dressed Foods, producers of the island's finest Best Dressed Roasters, were kind enough to sponsor our feature with roasters. So, last weekend, Daviot Kelly (a novice in the kitchen); Keisha Shakespeare Blackmore (budding Martha Stewart/young bride still tempting hubby's palate); Tesi Johnson (would rather buy a rotisiere chicken at the store); Nashauna Drummond (will cook only when she has to); Yahneake Sterling (would rather not cook at all) and Barbara Ellington (loves only one other thing more than cooking), all went a-roasting.

Surprisingly, all chickens tasted yummy. Not surprisingly, we will not divulge all our recipes. Perhaps we don't even know what went into the process. Whatever the reason, we certainly did not need to patronise the company's canteen on Monday.

Here is my recipe which is a combination of my friend Lambert Sandford's marinate and my favourite natural Jamaican herbs and spices. I must confess I am one of those cooks who never measure anything except for sauces and when baking and I use absolutely no salt.

INGREDIENTS

One six-pound Best Dressed Roster

Several cloves garlic

One large onion

A liberal amount of scallion

A healthy root of fresh thyme

A little ground golen chili powder from Thailand,

A couple generous dashes of Mrs. Dash Garlic and Herb

A few pimento berries

A small bit of green ginger

METHOD

All the above are placed in the blender with a mixture of mushroom soy sauce, brown sugar, water and apple cider vinegar and blended thoroughly. Using a gloved hand, some of the mixture is rubbed into the bird's cavity, breast under the skin and shoulder and it is then placed breast down in the rest of the mixture, covered and set on bottom shelf of fridge.

1. Oven is preheated to 375 degrees Farenheit lowered to 350 degrees, 15 minutes after chicken is placed inside.

2. Line baking pan with two layers of aluminium foil and use a teaspoon of any brand of Jamaican coconut oil to grease it.

3. Place chicken inside and cover baking adequately with aluminium foil then place in oven.

4. After the first hour, remove foil and allow bird to get a golden brown colour, baste all the time with juice from marinate.

5. Cover again, let bird cook until tender and when the skin starts to pull away from the legs.

6. Garnish was simply six thin slices of almonds in the breast after bird was placed on green breadfruit leaves with navel orange wedges from Mandeville and some grapes. Serve with green gungo peas and rice and all the other fattening and delicious side dishes on the table come December 25.

All year long, we have shared the recipes of the experts in the food service business and as we planned the end-of-year editions of Food, the Lifestyle team felt it would be fitting to share our way of cooking the Christmas roasted chicken.