Instructions: Wash and dry the chicken. Zest the lemons and squeeze the juice. Lift the skin over the breast and gently work your fingers between the flesh and the skin to seperate them.

Crush the garlic. Pick some of the thyme leaves off the stems. Mix together the butter, garlic and thyme leaves, half the lemon zest and some seasoning.

Spread the seasoned butter under the skin of the chickens and over the flesh of the breasts. Season the birds inside and out. Strew the rest of the thyme over the base of an oven proof dish and sit the birds on top, breast sides down. Pour over half the stock and a squeeze of lemon.

Roast in the preheated oven until the juices run clear (aprrox 50 minutes dependant on the size of the birds). Turn the birds after 1/2 hour and baste with the pan juices leaving the skin on the breast to crisp. Remove the chickens from the cooking dish and keep warm whilst you make the sauce.

Cook together the rest of the stock and the lemon zest and juice with a little sugar. Use to de-glaze the cooking dish scraping up all the crusty cooking juices and simmer them together to amalgamate the flavours. Strain into a clean pan. Add the cream and cook down fairly hard to reduce and caramelise the cream. Season carefully and add a little more sugar if necessary (it depends how tart the lemons are)

Finish the sauce with a good handful of freshly chopped parsley.

Remove the breasts and legs off the carcasses and serve with a coating of the sauce.

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