If the bird has been sold with giblets remove them as soon as you get home, and unwrap the bird so that it can breathe. Store at the bottom of the refrigerator for not more than 2-3 days.

The more you spend on a chicken, the better it will probably taste. A frozen supermarket bird, battery-raised and fed on fishmeal until the moment of slaughter, has little chance of tasting good, however well cooked. Try and buy free-range birds. They may look scrawnier than the plump-breasted oven-ready bird but the flavour is far superior.

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Excerpt from Leiths Cookery Bible

[Leith, P., and Waldegrave, C., (2003), Leiths Cookery Bible, 3rd edition, Bloomburys, UK]