A SIMPLE ROAST CHICKEN
Is there any more beautiful, aromatic or (let’s use the word) sexy bird to come from the oven than a perfectly roasted chicken, its brown the color of a Capuchin’s robe, its scent of all the perfumes of the hearth? Read the story below, after the recipe.
RECIPE: Simple Roast Chicken
Ingredients
1 4-5 pound chicken, “air chilled” if possible
1 lemon
1 head garlic, unpeeled and cut in 2 across the cloves
Large sprig fresh thyme
3 tablespoons butter, unsalted and at room temperature
Freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon kosher salt
Directions
Take the chicken out of any packaging, rinse it well inside and out, drying it with paper toweling inside and out. Place it on a cooking sheet and let it sit in the refrigerator, overnight and uncovered, so that the skin dries off well. To prepare: Heat the oven to 425. On the cutting board or counter, firmly roll the lemon under the palm of your hand and pierce through its skin overall with sharp fork tines. Place the lemon in the bird’s cavity along with one of the garlic head halves and the thyme.
If the chicken’s skin is not too thin and fragile, insert a finger underneath it, atop the breast region and gently pull the skin away from the flesh. This creates a bit of an air pocket and helps crisp the skin a great deal. Truss the chicken by tucking the wing tips under the neck area and bringing kitchen twine under the neck flap, over the drumsticks in a tight line against the breasts, under the thighs, looping together the ankles of the legs and tying them together high and tight against the breasts. Assure that the chicken’s skin is dry and slather the butter all over it, including on and under the thigh meat. Place the chicken on a low rack in a shallow roasting or sheet pan (or merely on the pan’s surface) and liberally pepper and salt the bird.
Roast the chicken, without basting it, for 60-90 minutes or until an instant-read thermometer inserted into the thigh meat (being careful not to touch the bone) reads 165. Remove the chicken, place it on a cutting board, and let it rest, uncovered, for at least 15 minutes (and up to 25 minutes) before carving it, being sure to include as much of the crisp skin as possible.
MORE ON ROASTING A CHICKEN
While there may be many ways to skin a cat (something that I am fairly sure no one of us has ever done, nor has any intention of ever doing), there is only one way to roast a chicken so that its skin is crisp.
Short of using a kitchen-sized blowtorch (they exist), that way is to avoid steam in the oven. Moisture in the oven while roasting the chicken? No crisp skin.
And is there any more beautiful, aromatic or (let’s use the word) sexy bird to come from the oven than a perfectly roasted chicken, its brown the color of a Capuchin’s robe, its scent of all the perfumes of the hearth? Perhaps the Thanksgiving dinner turkey is up there in deliciousness, but that’s only once a year. Roast chicken is able to be the proverbial every-Sunday dinner.
To avoid moisture (steam) in the oven while roasting a chicken, use high heat, in the neighborhood of 400 degrees. You may roast a chicken at a lower heat, of course, and achieve that terrific-ness of meat falling off the bone. But the skin won’t be as crisp as it arrives out from under the fire of high heat.
Don’t baste, as much as you believe that it crisps skin. It does not; it moisturizes it, just as lotions made up of oil and broth (face it, it’s a broth) moisturize your skin.
Don’t secrete butter under the breast skin that you’ve just gently lifted from the chicken’s flesh. It will steam under that skin and prevent crisping.
Don’t add vegetables such as onions to the pan in the hope that they will caramelize and flavor the eventual gravy. They will indeed do that, but they also will release their abundant moisture (onions have tears, too) and turn the oven into a steam bath.
And do not add chicken broth to the roasting pan with the same aim of boosting the flavor of the gravy-to-come. In this instance, not adding water to a roasting chicken in hopes of crisp skin is a no-brainer.
Finally, two schools of practice fight for the high ground on whether to truss the bird or not. I favor tying it up. Trussing makes for a more comely package when the roast is over. It also raises the legs up and onto the breast, in a sense shielding the breast meat from the heat of the cooking and helping to keep this more fragile portion of the flesh from overcooking and drying out.
When carving the roast chicken, do not fail to find and pull out the two small "oysters" of meat that you'll find on the chicken's back, just below the neckline (where we'd locate our shoulder blades). They are perhaps the most succulent of pieces of any cooked whole fowl. The French have a delightful name for them; they're called "sot l'y laisse," roughly translated as "You're a fool if you leave them there."