Roasted Chicken

This post was inspired by a thread on a photography board I follow.  I’m a huge fan of cooking whole chickens.  First of all, whole chickens are much less expensive than buying parts (although I do buy parts because it’s faster and easier for a lot of things).  Second of all, once you’ve eaten the meat from a whole chicken, you then have the carcass to make a wonderful broth or stock from.  That’s another blog post.

So today I roasted a whole chicken for dinner (which will be served with leftover homemade mac n cheese and steamed brussels sprouts, if you’re curious).

The steps are super easy.  The steps below correspond (mostly) to the photos in the collage!

1. Buy your whole chicken. I really prefer a chicken from Whole Foods, but any good co-op or organic type grocery store will have similar chickens.  They’re guaranteed non-hormone or antibiotic fed, no beak trimming, etc.  They’re a little more expensive than the chickens in a bag you get at the grocery store, but I think they’re totally worth it.  If you do buy your chicken from a grocery store, try to buy a local brand and check the bag to make sure your bird hasn’t been injected with fillers, oils, or broth.
2. The joy of buying an organic bird is that sometimes there are feathers left.  Pluck them off (I have a pair of tweezers that stay in the kitchen that I use for plucking feathers and pin feathers from chickens and turkeys.  Also remove the innards and giblet pack from the body and the neck.
3. The ingredients are simple.  Olive oil, salt, pepper, and a few stems of rosemary from my front garden.  Oh and the bird itself.  Rinse the bird well, inside and out, but DON”T wash off that lovely yellow fat on the skin.  That’s good stuff and will help make the skin crispy and flavorful.
4. Pour a healthy amount of olive oil on the chicken.
5. Rub it in well, being sure to get behind the wings, on the back, and thoroughly coat each leg.
6. Stuff the rosemary into the body cavity.  You can put whatever you want in there, though; it doesn’t have to be rosemary.  Other options include:  a lemon cut into 1/2, an apple cut into quarters, sage, thyme, garlic and celery … go wild.  Whatever flavors you want to infuse your chicken with, try it.
7. Pull the ends of the legs (drumsticks) together and tie them off.  Some chickens have a flap of skin cut to hold the legs in place.  If you don’t have that, you can tie them with twine or skewer them with a bamboo skewer as I did.  (Mostly because I couldn’t find the damn twine!)
8. Salt.  Don’t skimp on the salt.
9. Pepper.  Ditto
10. Put the bird on your roasting pan – I love this little pan from the toaster oven because it has a riser.  I line the bottom pan with foil, put the chicken on the riser and it helps keep the chicken up out of the drippings.
11. This is the only tricky part – fold those annoying floppy wings down under the bird.  It takes some muscle and you’ll have to “pop” the joint to make it work.  Basically you want your chicken to look like it’s crossing it’s arms.  When you’re done, it’ll prop the body up a little bit and your bird will appear to be resting on it’s elbows.
12. This is what your bird should look like before going into the oven.  (Please excuse the very grungy looking roasting pan.  I use this pan for EVERYTHING and after a few years, it looks terrible.  It’s really clean.  I promise.)
13. Pop the chicken into a 375 oven.  I use my toaster oven because it’s the perfect size for a 4.5lb chicken.  Set your kitchen timer for 1 hour.
14. After the first hour, use your probe thermometer to check the temp at the thickest part of the breast (be sure not to let the probe touch bone).  When the temp reads 160, it’s time to take the bird out.  Another way to test, if you don’t have a thermometer is that the leg joints should wiggle freely and if you poke the bird, the juice that comes out will be perfectly clear (not pink tinted).
15. Let the bird sit for a good 20 mins before you cut into it.  This will allow it to finish cooking (it will continue to cook another 5+ degrees after it comes out of the oven).  The resting period also allows the juices in the bird to redistribute so you’ll have a moist chicken.
16. Voila.  When you cut into it, the meat will be glistening and moist, not dry.  The skin should be crispy and lightly salty.

In our house this chicken won’t last more than 24 hours.  Between dinner, a late night sandwich, lunch the next day … and various picking and snacking, it’ll be gone quickly.  Then you can take the carcass and make yummy soup.  That’ll be next!