Roasted Chicken & Stock

This recipe is so easy I don’t even know if it counts as a recipe, though I don’t seem to have ever posted about roasting a chicken.  I think roasting a chicken is super easy and one of those things that every cook should know how to do properly.  It seems almost impressive – I mean, the first time I did this (probably a few years ago now, I am pretty sure it was for my current boyfriend and at his house), my boyfriend was like, “Is it a special occasion?”  I guess taking a gloriously roasted chicken out of the oven turns any normal meal into something more, though really, all I do is throw it in the oven with minimal prep.  I know there are tons of ways to approach this – you can brine it first if you’d like.  You can stuff it.  You can put tin foil over it first and remove it later, or reverse, or put a beer can in its bum, or… well, you get the point.  There are tons of ways to go about this. 

Even I have variations – and this is the first time I’ve done exactly this to the bird – but here’s the general recipe:

One whole chicken

Remove bag of giblets from inside cavity.  Rinse well, pat dry.  Place in roasting pan, or in my case, tin foil baking pan.  Rub all over with butter, or olive oil, or whatever you’d like that’s kind of oil (rosemary oil, garlic oil, corn oil); season with salt, pepper, and whatever you’d like.  Put in oven that’s been preheated to 350 or so, and cook until done (depending on the weight of the bird, your oven, etc.) – you can use a thermometer to determine done-ness, but my lack of internet led me to rely on my thermometer’s included chart which said my bird should read 182 internally before it’s done.  Umm… that sounded way high to me, so I took it out around 160 and let it rest for a bit, and it was completely cooked already (and possibly starting to dry out already!).  Or you can just leave it in for around an hour, an hour and a half, and test doneness by poking it (I don’t recommend this, but I’ve read recipes that state “Chicken is done when juices run clear, no pink” and I kind of think “But I want the juices to stay inside the meat, not run away…”).

This time around, I rubbed it with olive oil (though I noticed when I use butter, the skin’s flavor is just that bit more juicy, tender, flavorful, and the brown comes out a bit nicer) and seasoned it with salt, pepper, Italian seasoning rubbed all over everything.  Because it was what I had, I zested a lemon a little bit over the top, then cut it in half and pushed half into the cavity as far as I could, pushed some sliced onions and scallions I had lying around inside and over the top, then the other half of the lemon went inside as well.  My chicken was 3 lbs. about, and I baked it for a little over an hour, hour and fifteen minutes. 

I was really amazed at how the lemon flavor came through, even into the wing tips, actually, despite being inside the cavity of the chicken.  Juicy, moist, flavorful, I enjoyed it a lot.

I cut the breast into nice, even slices, using Alton’s method demonstrated on one of the group shows they did for Thanksgiving a year or so ago, I can’t even explain it because I don’t think I’m doing it right.  It works, though, so try to catch that show to watch.  The rest of the meat, I just picked off the frame or ate it ! haha.  I don’t like white meat that much.  If I’d been serving this, I’d have used my kitchen shears to cut it into quarters and given everyone their own quarter, but it was just me, so I was able to slice the breast the way I did.

As for the rest of the meat, I picked off the smaller clumps and intend to mix with a splash of mayo to make a chicken salad for a sandwich or something… the slices of breast go into sandwiches for work!  With the remaining chicken frame, meat picked off, I broke it up a little and plunked it into cold water in a pot, along with odds and ends of an onion – I had no other veggie scraps or those would have gone in as well – and I put it over super low flame, letting it heat up and simmer for as many hours as I could stand, boy did it smell GOOD!!!, before straining it and pouring into a container to keep in the fridge for whenever I need roasted chicken stock.  Super yummy and healthy.  My entire apartment smelled so good.  Ahhh.

No wasting, right?  Right!

Happy eating!!!