Roast of Ages, Cluck for Me

Roasted Chicken. When was this household staple banished from our ovens and given over to the world of mega-mart deli departments, heat lamps, and little waterproof plastic coffins. I decided I was going to try my hand at this one. I wanted to do it simple. This was more about technique than crazy flavors and spices. I needed to know, can I roast things?

The cavity of this bird got stuffed with a few handfuls of herbs. Some fresh parsley and basil, lemon slices, some onion, and crushed garlic cloves. You know there’s quite a bit of space in one of those things. I half expected a parade of Cornish-game hen clowns to start coming out of that thing after a while.

I took some lemon zest and minced garlic and rubbed it between the skin and meat as best I could, then gave the skin a light rubdown with some vegetable oil and a sprinkle of coarse sea salt. Wow this sounds pretty good so far. This lucky chicken probably never got this kind of treatment in the barnyard! You know people pay a lot of money for this kind of treatment at spas.

It roasted in the oven for about an hour over pretty heavy heat, a hefty 450 degrees, though next time I’ll probably lower the temperature to 300 in the last few minutes just because I started getting a few wisps of smoke, but nothing even a half-dead exhaust fan couldn’t handle. It was totally worth it, because the smell of a roasting chicken, lemon, and fresh herbs permeated every corner of my tiny apartment, and probably other apartments too!

For sides, I went with some red braised cabbage, apples and caraway seeds. I was pleased with the nice purple color, and much more pleased with the total absence of “cabbage cooking smell” (read: fart) in the air. I had never tried braising cabbage before, so I wanted to try this take on it, and all the research I did said “cook red cabbage with apples, or the world will explode.” Not wanting to be the cause of the apocalypse, I stuck with tradition, though I used white wine and some bay leaf instead of just apple cider. It came out really nice, but I think it would be better served alongside pork instead of chicken. The sweetness of it clashed a bit with the turned up savory level of the chicken and potatoes.

Speaking of potatoes, I didn’t feel like baking, so I went with boiling, and just some butter, parsley, salt and pepper followed by a quick browning in some butter. Simple. Traditional, and a perfect accompaniment to the chicken. Speaking of the chicken…
When it was time, I ended up with a beautiful golden bird. The skin was golden brown, delicious, and somehow crispy without being “dry”. Every bite was an adventure in flavor, first the slightly salty yet crispy skin, then the burst of lemon and garlic, followed by juicy deliciousness of chicken.

What was the final outcome of this little experiment? Well it’s more work than grabbing one of those churn-a-bird displays to be sure, but I’ll go out on a limb and say that the satisfaction of a simple home-roasted chicken truly rivals that of even the Thanksgiving Turkey. I am now a roasting fan!