1. Preheat the oven to 400F.

2. Prep the dressing for the chicken.

Melt the butter in the microwave. As soon as it is finished melting, mix the pinch of saffron into the warm butter. Set aside to cool a bit while you work on prepping the other ingredients for the dressing.

Zest the lemon.

In a blender (an immersion blender works best here, but a normal blender will also work if it is on the smaller side), combine the thyme, preserved lemon skin, lemon zest, garlic, juice from 1/2 of the lemon, 1/2 tsp of salt, several grinds of pepper, and finally the saffron butter mixture.

Blend until most of the large chunks are gone, but stop before the mixture is totally smooth. You want a bit of texture. (See picture above.)

3. Prep the chicken.

Find a relatively small baking dish that is jut big enough to fit the chicken. Line it with parchment paper. Plop in the chicken. Then trim around the edges of the parchment paper so you don’t have loads of parchment paper sticking up ready to burn. 

Take the dressing and place some under the skin of the chicken. I use gloves for this, because touching raw chicken is just not something I enjoy.

Then use the remainder of the dressing to coat the remainder of the chicken. Get it on nice and thick, like a mud facemask.  Mmm.

4. Roast the chicken at 400F for about 1 hour.

I usually bake chickens using the convection setting. This will affect the cooking time (about 60 minutes for a 4lb chicken with convection; 70 minutes without). Check on the chicken after about 30 minutes and baste it with some of the butter that will have dripped off in the bottom of the dish.

The chicken is done when the breast reaches 155F. Let it rest for about 10 minutes (the chicken will come up to 165F during this resting period and the juices will redistribute so you don’t lose moisture when you cut into it).

5. After removing the chicken from the dish, pour off the drippings into a saucepan and cook them down a bit. 

Give them a try to see how they taste. If you want them to be more lemony and tart, you can add the juice of the remaining 1/2 lemon to the drippings while they cook down. I usually let them boil down for a couple of minutes. I use the reduced drippings as a sauce for the sliced chicken. 

6. Enjoy!