So we’re in hour two of my insomnia. I’m not sure why I can’t sleep, but at least I’m being productive, eh?
Roasting a chicken sounds daunting–at least it did to me–but it’s really as simple as can be. The chicken you can buy in the store are really very automated, and there’s really nothing very domestic about it anymore. Seriously, stick it in an oven and it’s done. Crazy. Also, it was the best chicken I’ve ever had in my life. Try it, if you’ve never tried it. You’ll be dumbstruck like me.
So because neither Jo nor I had done this before, we decided to go for a small to medium sized chicken. I think it ended up being 11 pounds or something, but I’d recommend getting something even smaller–six to eight, maybe–unless you’re cooking for a lot of people or plan on eating a lot of chicken in the days to come.
Jo and I had delicious leftovers for a little over a week, and we cooked them into various things (fajitas, open-faced sandwiches, served with mashed potatoes and gravy, etc). So you can be creative with your leftovers.
Recipe – makes an ENTIRE CHICKEN
- 1 whole chicken, between 6-8 lbs and preferably with a meat thermometer included
- 1/2 a lemon, inserted
- 1/2 an onion, inserted
- 1 bay leaf
- 1/2 tsp thyme, sprinkled onto the chicken–optional
over-exposed.
So the chicken we bought was pre-salted and included a meat thermometer. There are instructions on the packaging, but essentially: remove the giblets package and insert the lemon, onion, and bay leaf. Stick the entire stuffed chicken, breast side up, into a 9×13 casserole dish or roasting pan if you have it. The packaging may recommend covering the chicken with foil for the first 30 minutes, but we didn’t do that and it was fine and the chicken was still very, very moist. It can be in the oven anywhere to 1.5-3 hours, so be sure to check on it every half hour or so and baste it in its own juices. Okay, it shouldn’t take three hours for a small chicken, but I added potatoes in the bottom tray to roast with the chicken, and it took longer to cook. Once done, carve chicken. You can save the giblets, bones, and fat juices to make a chicken stock, but that’s icky.
hey there, chicky chicky
NOM NOM NOM.
