the stove will warm your chili bones!
alas, the beautiful autumn weather has turned over to show its dark side: the wind, the freezing rains, the bare black skeletons of the trees starting to appear under the brilliant foliage, the beastly driving skills of foreign-exchange students. what weather has driven me inside also inspires me to cook, so i guess it cannot be all bad. i started with my traditional fall roast chickens, the first of which went to welcoming the newest addition to 6willz, new roomate alex. it is always more enjoyable to cook for others, and it helps clear the leftovers from the refridgerator*.
chickens are a great place to start. they are cheap, easy to cook whole, and the leftover can be turned into darned near anything. be it soup, casserole, salad, or art projects, leftover chicken meat, organs, and carcasses are infinately useful.
Juicy Roasted Chicken with Potatoes
content:
1 3-4.5 lb. roasting chicken (roasting/frying chickens are labeled as such. using a larger chicken labeled 'stewing hen' will result in dry, tough meat)
1 lemon, sliced thinly
1 medium sweet onion (vidalia, yellow, whatever)
1-2 tbsps butter, room temp
4-6 small red potatoes, scrubbed and halved
salt and pepper
rosemary, sage, and/or thyme, optional
preheat the oven to 350 F. remove the giblet bag from the cavity and rinse the chicken in cold water. pat dry.
rub the chicken skin all over with the butter, and loosen the skin from the flesh by pulling up the edge of the skin from where the chicken breasts meet the cavity.
shove the lemon slices under the skin right over the breast meat. usually two slices fit per side. stick the rest in the cavity. skin and rinse the onion; stick the whole thing inside the cavity. if the whole thing doesn't fit, cut it in half. sprinkle a little salt and pepper all over the outside of the chicken.
if you have a roasting rack**, place the chicken BREAST SIDE DOWN onto it. place the rack into a baking pan or casserole dish and arrange the potatoes around it. drizzle them with a very little bit of olive oil and sprinkle the herbs over the potatoes and the chicken.
stick the whole pan in the oven and let cook for about an hour.
okay, here's the fun part!
after an hour, you are going to FLIP THE CHICKEN OVER, so the breast side is facing up. no, really. you can do this. use a little common sense, though.
a.) the bird is hot, so don't touch it with your bare hands.
b.) put the pan on a sturdy surface.
c.) use tongs, potholders, carving forks, or whatever you think is handy. you might lose control and flip the chicken onto the floor, or if your lucky the counter, but the worst thing you can do is fling a sharp utensil into your eye. gross. a little common sense and caution go a long way in this step. so don't be a doofus.
if you don't think you can do this part, just put the chicken breast-side up in the pan and make sure it sits kind of low in the oven. the skin can burn easily with those lemons under it.
cook it for another 30-45 minutes at 375 F. how do you know it's done? i usually poke it deep in the thigh joint and see if the juices are clear. if they are dark pink, keep cooking. also, you can take its temperature. insert a meat thermometer into the place where the thigh meets the body, and it should read 165 F.
when one of these results is achieved, take it out of the oven let the chicken sit for a few minutes. if the potatoes are not cooked to your liking, you can put then back in the oven until they are done.
the result should be an extremely juicy bird and crispy golden skin. it takes practice to get the best results, but chicken's cheap and you can always cover dry meat with gravy.
*except the month-old chili that i found in the back, becoming more and more sentient by the day. fortunately, i squelched it before it could form a coalition with the moldy cornbread and stage a coup over the reigning salad-dressing junta.
**if not, meh. they make disposable pans with raised rack-like bottoms that come in handy. a rack helps the heat to circulate around the whole bird, making cooking more efficient and the skin more crispy.
posted by Megan at
7:29 AM
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