Recipe: Fine Cooking-Style Roast Chicken

Fine Cooking Style Roast Chicken
rec.food.cooking/Kate/1997

I like Roasted, not baked Chicken, so I always start my whole chicken recipes with an oven temperature at 475. This allows the Chicken skin to sear locking in juices and flavor inside the bird. I never cover the chicken while roasting if you do you are steaming it and not roasting it.

Always use fresh, not frozen, whole chickens. I usually cook for two people and a 2 1/2 to 3 lb bird serves two with plenty of leftovers for making chicken salad etc.

My method (as stolen from an article in "Fine Cooking" magazine) is as follows: Rinse the chicken inside and out and pat dry with a paper towel.

Rub the inside of the chicken with kosher salt and the outside of the chicken with freshly crushed or ground pepper and kosher salt. I place several sprigs of fresh rosemary and thyme in the chicken cavity. I don't bother with trussing a chicken unless I feel like showing off with a neater looking bird. I use a heavy pan just large enough to hold the chicken and some vegetables. I use a variety of vegetables to cook with my chicken. This serves two purposes. Roasted vegetables are delicious and they help absorb some of the smoking caused by fats from the chicken splattering during cooking at such high heat. I roast onions, parsnips, potatoes, carrots, mushrooms, asparagus etc by cleaning them and cutting up the onions, parsnips and potatoes and leaving the others whole. I melt two tablespoons butter or a combination of butter and olive oil and place the chicken in the pan turning it to coat it all over with the fats. I put the cleaned and cut vegetables in the pan with the chicken. Place the chicken on its side and put the pan on the middle rack of the hot oven for 15 minutes. Turn chicken to its other side and roast for another 15 minutes.

Lower the oven temp to 400 and turn chicken so it is facing chicken breast side up. Roast for 25 to 30 minutes basting with pan juices every 5 minutes or so. A chicken is done when a tip of a knife stuck in the thigh where the thigh meets the leg reveals clear juices. If the juices are pink or red then the bird needs to cook longer.