Chicken Roast Chicken

I’m chicken about chicken. It usually always turns out… well… too chicken-y. Plus its so… plebeian. But I was cooking for a large group, Psycho Chef had just made beef the other day, and a whole host of other excuses, so I decided to go for roast chicken. And not be chicken about it.

My verdict? Roast chicken is hard to fuck up. Believe me, my oven tried.

Stuff that cavity.

So I picked up a pre-cleaned broiler chicken with skin on. Once I got it home and was ready to cook, I preheated the oven to 225 Celsius. Then, I got a bunch of salt and pepper and the thyme, and generously seasoned the inside cavity of the chicken, and then did the same for the outside, going a little easy on the thyme. I made sure I rubbed the salt and pepper into the skin a little bit to ensure that the skin would crisp up in the oven. I then stuffed the cavity with 2 halves of a cut lemon and 3 cloves of garlic. I then tied-up, or trussed, the chicken with a string. This, as I have come to learn, is one of the secrets to good roast chicken, so don’t skip this step.

Trussed-up.

I placed the chicken in the oven for an hour. I pulled the chicken out and liberally spooned the chicken drippings back onto the skin repeatedly for about a minute– this is the only basting I did. Then I turned on the broiler (grill thing that shoots fire from the top of the oven) for another 5-10 minutes until the skin had browned nicely. I took the chicken out of the oven and let it cool for a while. Actually that is a lie. I turned off the heat and left the chicken in the oven until I was ready to serve it to my guests, about 30 minutes later.

That skin is starting to crisp up!

Note: I managed to pull this roast chicken off (to the tune of “I usually don’t like chicken, but this was great”) even though my oven kept turning on and off the entire time and it actually took me an hour and a half on the first chicken and I had to take the next two chickens to an oven actually worked in another apartment. So yeah — its hard to fuck up Roast Chicken as long as you truss it up and season it properly.

That almost looks too good to eat!

Ingredients:

1 skin-on broiler chicken, precleaned
1 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon dried thyme
3 cloves garlic
1 lemon, halved

Ready to eat!