my favorite, easy way to roast a chicken. (and how to keep it from drying out.)

I love making roast chicken.  Chicken producers should pay me for all the advertising I do for the chicken industry.  Other than Colonel Sanders, I don't think there's anyone quite as enthusiastic about chicken as I am.

This is not a chicken I cooked, and it is not a photo I took.  I am just awful at remembering to take pictures of the food I cook because, once dinner's ready, I'm always too busy actually eating it to photograph it.  But I should probably come back and try to swap out this picture for a Van Voorst original at some point.

It took me a while to really get on board the chicken train. (CHICKEN TRAIN?!  I see a children's book idea in there.  Intellectual copyright: Paige Van Voorst, 11/25/19.)  First of all, raw chickens look and feel like babies when you hold them.  They really do.  Second of all, whole chickens always turn out so dry in the oven, but so mushy in the crockpot.  So any effort expended was immediately negated by the fact that I didn't want to actually eat the chicken I'd just slaved over.

But then I found this Thomas Keller recipe (originally in some magazine, way back before Pinterest existed, right after Gutenberg's moveable type made magazines even possible), and my whole world was changed.  I've made a few tweaks to make it even easier than the original recipe (which was hard to do, I must admit), and I've figured out a couple of tricks to guarantee it turns out well every single time - the meat stays moist, while the skin gets really crispy.  To die for.

First, my tips:

1. Get the best quality chicken you can afford. 

While I purchase most grocery items for the lowest prices I can find, because I frequently can't taste a difference between the cheap brands/products and the most expensive ones, I have noticed a difference with chicken.  I have found a non-GMO, pastured option at my local Natural Grocers for $2.50/lb, which is a pretty good price for meat!  (The brand is "Mary's.")  I always use the bones to make around a gallon of chicken stock, which typically costs about $2 per quart, so in my mind, that balances the cost of purchasing a more expensive chicken.  Although, I've also made this recipe with $0.95/lb chickens from Aldi, and it still turns out great, so you can't go wrong either way.

2. Get the raw chicken up to room temperature before even attempting to mess with it. 

I know, I know; there's a bunch of well-founded hysteria surrounding raw chicken.  But you're about to blast this sucker with some high heat, and cook it all the way through, so I feel like the risk of contamination is pretty nil.  Plus, if you invest in higher quality chickens, the risk of bacteria already on the meat from the packaging process is lower.  So I take it out of the fridge at least an hour before prepping it; sometimes it comes out in the morning before I roast it in the afternoon.  COLD MEAT IS DRY MEAT. COLD MEAT IS DRY MEAT.  Make that your kitchen mantra from here on out.

3.  Rinse it clean, and then get it as dry as you possibly can. 

Think: desert conditions.  Would a camel die of thirst if left to wander the surface of this chicken?  If the answer is no, keep drying it off.  I just wrap it in a flour sack towel, and kind of turn it over in my hands and rub it.  (You know; like a baby after a bath.)  Make sure to get the body cavity dry as well.  (NOT like a baby after a bath.)


4.  Blast the heat right at first, then turn the temps down for the remainder of the roasting time. 

This crisps up the skin and seals the moisture inside, without drying it out.

Okay, ready for the recipe?


Ingredients:

1. Whole roasting chicken (average size)

2. Salt, pepper, and garlic powder (this is all I use); or other seasonings of your choice

3. That is all.


Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 425.

2. Rinse chicken well and pat it very dry.

3. Place in shallow baking dish; sprinkle with seasonings to taste. (Get a little bit heavy-handed on the salt, especially if you're using mineral salt or sea salt, which I recommend.)

4. Bake uncovered at 425 for 30 minutes; then turn oven down to 350 and continue to bake another 45 minutes.

5. Remove from oven and allow to rest for 15 minutes before cutting.


And that's everything.  You wash the chicken, stick it in the oven for a little over an hour, pull it out, and dinner is ready.  You can put seasoned root vegetables under the chicken while it roasts if you'd like, just leave it in at 350 for an extra 10-15 minutes.  SO EASY.

When I make this, Todd takes one of the breasts, Atticus and I each have a hindquarter, Penelope eats the wings, and the littler kids split the remaining breast.  It works out perfectly for us.  If we're having guests, or I want some extra chicken to freeze or put in soup, I cook two chickens and add 10-15 minutes to the cooking time on the end.  After we're done eating, I throw the bones in the stockpot and make broth after dinner.  (Recipe coming soon!)

Try this and let me know how it turns out!

Tomorrow, I'll share the soup recipe that I'll be making for dinner tomorrow night, to keep things ubersimple while I'm prepping for Thanksgiving!