Spicy Indian Roast Chicken

I've done roast chicken before, but this one has a bit of a twist: I coated the chicken with a spicy mustard sauce before popping it in the oven. I'm submitting this one for Sweetnicks' ARF/5-a-day roundup.

Spicy Indian Roast Chicken
1 whole chicken, 4-5 pounds, giblets removed, rinsed and patted dry
1 onion
1 lemon
4 carrots
3-4 medium white potatoes
2 Tbsp Dijon mustard
2 tsp curry powder
2 tsp Sriracha (garlic-chili sauce)
1/4 c EVOO
salt & pepper

Preheat the oven to 400.

Cut the lemon in half and then one of the halves into quarters. Slice ends off the onion, and then slice it in half lengthwise. Cut the onion halves in wedges (6-8 total). Peel the carrots and slice them into 1 - 1 1/2" long pieces, and slice or dice the potatoes into about 3/4" pieces. Season the interior of the chicken with salt and pepper, then stuff it with the lemon quarters (reserving the lemon half) and a couple of the onion wedges. Tie up the legs with kitchen twine and tuck the wings underneath the breast. Place the chicken on a rack in a roasting pan and surround the chicken with the carrots, potatoes, and remaining onion wedges.

In a small bowl, combine the mustard, juice from the reserved half lemon, the olive oil, curry powder, and Sriracha. Whisk the ingredients together until they are well mixed and make a fairly thin sauce. If the sauce is too thick, add more olive oil. Spread the sauce over the chicken with a basting brush, and then toss the remaining sauce with the vegetables. Season the chicken and vegetables well with salt & pepper, and roast in the oven for an hour to an hour and a half, until the chicken measures between 165 and 170 degrees. Be sure to let the chicken rest for ten minutes before carving, to allow the juices to redistribute in the meat.

You could easily make a lovely sauce with the pan drippings, a little flour, and some chicken stock (maybe throw in a little parsley or cilantro for extra color and flavor), and serve the whole thing over rice, but I opted to just serve it as-is. The way the chicken smelled while it was cooking was heavenly, and I couldn't wait another minute to dig in.