Recently I've just been in love with cooking again. I'm feeling inspired and challenged by making great food. This is my Best Ever Roast Chicken which has evolved from an amalgamation of tips and tricks from a variety of sources. I cannot tell you which items came from whom so I'll just credit them all here: Rachel Ray, Ree Drummond, Paula Dean, my grandpa, and of course, my mom! My mom is probably the most influential person in this list. She has this amazing ability to cook animals. Really, you can't be an herbivore when she's cooking. I know because I've tried!
My roast chicken begins in the traditional (I'm guessing Irish? Who knows, I'm such a northern european mutt) way with a bed of root vegetables. Cut everything so that it cooks at the same rate.
Dislaimer: I won't tell you quantities of each item or chop sizes because the way I cook is very much an instinctual process whereby quantities, proportions, and seasonings just manifest as I go. The best I can tell you is that I decide which item is to be the star (in this case, potatoes) and how much I want of that and then everything else becomes a supporting actor. I am experienced enough to know what flavors will be produced with each cooking method so I make my decisions based on that. Thus, onions are a very bold sweet flavor when roasted. Mushrooms become more intense with their beefy-ness. Carrots become dessert sweet and garlic gets more earthy.
I prefer the earthy flavors so there is more garlic and mushrooms than carrot or onion, but onion wins over carrot in my book so that is also taken into consideration.
I put olive oil down on the roasting pan - ditch that roasting rack you get with it. If you're not soaking up chicken flavor with vegetables, then you're wasting the chicken's juices. Then I toss all of the vegetables in the oil. Sprinkle salt, pepper, rosemary, dried parsley, dried basil, and Old Bay (or some other seasoning salt) all over the vegetables and toss again. Make sure the star of this medley is the rosemary giving the least amount of presence to the Old Bay.
Now, the chicken. Rinse the bird in cold water - remove the giblets and other yucky things. Honestly why do people eat that?!
Rub olive oil all over the bird. I use this because it gets into every single crevice and roasted olive oil just creates the best flavor. Then, I separate the skin from the breast and shove softened butter and whole garlic cloves under the skin. With the bird breast-side up, I rub the top of the skin, the legs and wings with butter. Then, rosemary is sprinkled all over the bird, inside and out. garlic cloves are placed inside the cavity. The wings are tucked under the breasts.
Place the bird, boob-side up, on top of the vegetables. Put this in a 400 degree oven for roughly an hour for a 4lb bird, and then add 15 minutes per pound after that. Place a meat thermometer in the crook where the leg meets the breast and leave it there for the cooking process. You're looking for 170 degrees before you pull out the bird.
When our lady friend is ready, pull her out of the oven and remove the thermometer. Watch the hole the thermometer made closely. Are the juices running clear? If not, even if there's the slightest discoloration, put her back in the over. That hen ain't done yet! When the juices run clear, bring her out to rest for about 15 minutes. Then slice her up and eat!
Since I never measure my ingredients, I always end up with way too many left overs. I.F. hates this so much. He says "Why are you cooking for 10? Theres only you and me." To which I say, "I'm a country woman. This is the first time in my life that there has been less than 5 people at my dinner table. My mother doesn't know how to cook for two and neither do I."
Thus, I've become quite creative with leftovers. Check out the next blog post on what to do with leftover roasted veg!
-A
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