Lemon-Herb Roast Chicken

Posted January 25, 2010

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There is just something so Mr. Bean about a roast chicken, isn't there?

Warning: Lizard Hearts! Oh wait. No. It's just a raw chicken. {shudder}

"Raise your hand if you're a massage therapist!" I said, when it was time to butter the bird. {shudder}

In a classy maneuver, I dug through some aging crudites to find veggies for the roasting pan: celery and fennel, in this instance. I would have put the radishes in too if I'd been eating alone.

Oh, is that a buttered raw chicken? Yawn.

I'm just making sure it's as boring as it looked.

And voila!

Yummy. The veggies collapse into a delicious if not very photogenic accompaniment. Oh, wait, you can't even see them here.

Everybody loves roast chicken.

Even if they don't look very happy.

Or very sane.

I am 97% certain that Birdy will end up being a vegetarian--she's really headed that way. But roast chicken she still eats happily.

Here's what I love about roasting a chicken in wintertime: you spend approximately 11 seconds with it (albeit a monumentally revolting 11 seconds), and then it cooks all by its lonesome for the next hour or two, filling your house with warmth and a deliciously aromatic anticipation of dinnertime. Ben, when he was little, used to say, "Ooooh, Mama--what's that chickeny, chickeny smell?" "Chicken," I'd say, and he'd say, very Sherlock Holmes, "I thought so!"

Plus, this is the perfect moment to roast a chicken. Late January, it turns out, I love. "Look at the light!" I say every day, my bubbling words freezing and cracking in the 20-degree air. "Spring is on its way!" And then I open my journal and read from this day last year, and the year before, and the year before that: "I keep thinking it seems so springy out, but everybody thinks I'm crazy." By early February, my preemptive spring fever will have been chilled by ice dams and barfing, by chapped hands and chapped nostrils and the children's oddly stinking gloves. (To quote Dar Williams, "February was so long that it lasted into March. . . " Exactly.)

But don't even get me started on the barfing. Because then you'll have to hear about how we just spent the weekend at my parents' house, where Ben awoke in the night to barf, mysteriously, into their sink. Which is better than the last occasion, at Michael's parents, where he barfed down the staircase. "You're turning into a bit of a barfer," Michael said to him, and Ben shrugged and smiled, and said, "I know--it's gross." I alternated between bouts of affectionate maternal concern and bouts of hiding in the other room, sweating and fretting and feeling phobically nauseated. However, Ben did announce that it was the best weekend of his life--what with the watching of Boomerang TV in his pajamas, and the endless rounds of Coke and buttered toast, and his doting Grandma waiting on him hand and foot, and his favorite drizzly-drazzly kind of weather. So he had that going for him. Which was nice.

Oops. I did it again. I meant to say: The roast chicken! It is totally unrelated to the previous paragraph. Clear your mind and buy a chicken, then roast it and love it. The recipe makes a perfectly seasoned, perfectly moist, perfectly crisp-skinned and golden bird that requires no basting or fussing. And after you eat it, you can simmer the carcass and make chicken soup. Because by then someone will have a cold again and be in need of it. Not that spring's not coming. Because it is.

Lemon-Herb Roast Chicken
Serves 4-6
Active time: 10 minutes; total time: 2 hours 
 
1 4-pound chicken
2 tablespoons butter, softened
2 teaspoons kosher salt (or half as much table salt)
3 cloves garlic, smashed and peeled
2 or 3 fresh herb sprigs (marjoram, thyme, and rosemary are all good choices)
1 thick slice of lemon
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 onion, sliced thick
Other vegetables (carrot or celery sticks, fennel slices), optional
1 cup water

Heat the oven to 450. Rinse the chicken, pat it dry with paper towels, then rub it all over with the butter. Salt it inside and out, then pop the garlic, herbs, and lemon into its cavity.

Now spread the olive oil in a baking dish, and arrange the onions and any other vegetables you like over the bottom of the dish. Place the chicken atop the veggies, pour in the water, and roast until it's done: around 1 1/2 hours. I wiggle a leg, and if it seems nice and loose in its socket, I feel confident that the bird is cooked. Other methods include pricking the thigh and looking for clear juice (Clear as opposed to opaque? Or clear as opposed to tinted? I'm never totally sure.) If you have one of those pregnancy bellybutton thingies on your chicken, then just wait for it to pop out.

Remove the chicken to a cutting board to rest before carving, remove the veggies to a platter, and evaluate your pan juices. I pour mine into a gravy separator to siphon off the fat, then I use the hand blender to whir them with the lovely browned onions from the pan. This makes a yummy, easy gravy. Another thing would be to make a more traditional gravy by whisking together equal amounts of chicken fat and flour (say 2 tablespoons of each) in a small pot over medium heat, then whisking in the chicken juices along with additional canned broth if you need more liquid. Whisk until thickened and serve with the carved chicken. If I am feeling motivated, I do it that way. Enjoy!

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Lemon-Herb Roast Chicken

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ELN5 says:

April 10, 2010

I forgot to mention-- if you follow the recipe to the letter, it comes out pretty salty. We happen to like salty, but if I were making it for guests, I might cut back on the salt a bit and let people add more if they want.

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ELN5 says:

April 09, 2010

Yum! I finally got around to making this tonight. Our chicken was only 3.25 pounds, but it still took the full 1.5 hours, which was longer than I expected. The chicken was juicy and yummy and the skin was crisp-- but I put the darn thing in the oven *upside down*! Doh!! Bcs I find the raw chicken so gross, my husband is usually the one to make roast chicken, but that's not much of an excuse for not noticing an upside down bird, is it? Anyway, it was great and should be even better next time if I can keep it rightside up.

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la_larga says:

March 12, 2010

Just made this the other night. Wow! Sooo good. Thumbs up from me, my husband and my nearly 2 year old son. Plus, the chicken fed us for 3 nights! First night was just chicken with the potatoes and veggies it roasted with, then chicken and rice with gravy the next night, and finally I used the rest on a big chicken salad. Thanks for this one!

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Dalai Mama Dishes

by Catherine Newman

Catherine Newman cooks for the family

Dalai Mama Dishes

Catherine Newman cooks for the family

Lemon-Herb Roast Chicken

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