I was on a scary trip to the grocery store recently and they had a crazy good deal on whole chickens. I like to make stock with the bones and figured I could use the leftover meat after dinner for my lunch salads. A chicken was purchased. I haven't made a good roast chicken in awhile and I thought I would try and make a new method to share on the blog. I perused my cookbooks and couldn't find what i wanted. So I went to my other trusted sources, the Kitchn and New York Times Cooking. Usually, the comments are where the good stuff is. This time, it was no exception.
I found a lovely Julia Child method in the comments on the Kitchn's recipe and decided to work from that with what I had. The result? Moist and juicy chicken with lovely crispy skin. It was heavenly! I did not have twine to truss the chicken, so I made do with a skewer to hold the cavity shut. I froze the extra meat and it was lovely reheated in a salad. There is quite nothing like a roasted chicken and you really need to find one and make this stat! Full recipe to follow the montage.
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| Just look at that lovely crispy skin! |
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| Some delightful aromatics for the cavity. |
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| Give your bird a good rubdown with butter |
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| And then simply season with lots of salt and pepper. |
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| Pin it and make it when you can find a whole chicken! |
The Best Roast Chicken (adapted from Julia Child)
one whole chicken
one onion, cut into large slices
one medium shallot, cut into large slices
two lemons, halved
4 cloves of garlic, smashed
half a stick of butter, softened
freshly ground salt and black pepper
Preheat oven to 425. Bring the chicken to room temperature and pat dry with a paper towel. Place onion, shallot, lemons and garlic in the cavity. Rub the bird with butter and season with lots of salt and pepper. Truss the legs with kitchen twine, or use a skewer to pull the skin together to close the cavity. Place in a roasting pan I used a sheet pan with a cooling rack on top. Roast chicken for 15 minutes, then lower the heat to 350 and continue cooking with the formula below.
Multiply the weight of the chicken by 7 and add 45, this is the cooking time. Depending on the weight of the chicken, be prepared to add 10-20 minutes of buffer time. For instance:
For a 4 lb chicken: 4 x 7= 28, plus 45= 73 minutes. Preheat oven to 425, roast chicken for 15 minutes, lower heat to 350 and continue to finish cooking for 58 minutes. Remove from oven, check for doneness (it should be 165 degrees in the thickest part of the thigh, return to oven for buffer time if needed to get to that temp), and let the chicken sit for 20 minutes before serving.
Reserve the drippings for gravy or save them for another day. All you do for gravy is place them in a pan, add a little flour to thicken and then add chicken stock, water or white wine to fortify and make gravy! Boil the bones and veggie scraps to make stock. You can pull the meat off and store it in the freezer in a plastic freezer bag.
Who knew one item could go so far!?
Happy Cooking!
Missy
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