How to Cook : Roast Chicken

Of all the things I like to share on this blog, the main one is how to be a Ma Ingalls – or Martha Stewart, or whatever domestic goddess you’d like to emulate – in today’s world. I’ve referred to it before as my “lazy cooking from scratch” style. And what makes you feel more like a domestic goddess than pulling a beautifully roasted chicken out of your oven to the ooh’s and aah’s of your loving family?

Okay, in my family it goes more like shouting “thanks, mom” while you stab your favorite piece and throw it on your plate before anyone else stabs it. Not exactly the Norman Rockwell-esque scene I like to imagine. But still I’m taking domestic goddess creds however I can get them.

This chicken took me only 20 minutes to prepare and put in the oven, including picture taking time. It really doesn’t get any easier than this! The time-to-goddess ratio is really good. Here’s the basic formula…

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Rinse your thawed chicken and pat dry with paper towels. Make sure you’ve pulled out that bag of giblets from the cavity! Salt and pepper it all over, inside and out. Then season it with whatever trips your trigger. I used garlic powder and dried thyme. You could try onion powder, seasoned salt, Greek seasoning… whatever you have on hand and sounds good to you! Once you’ve sprinkled your seasoning all over, give that chicken a massage and just rub the seasoning right into the skin.

For inside the cavity of the chicken you can slice up an onion, or a lemon, and just stuff it in there. I didn’t have either one of those things, and as my eyes traveled around the kitchen they lit on some apples. I figured apples would work as well as anything to add moisture and a subtle flavor, so I cut one into quarters and stuffed those inside the cavity.

Then I figured, why stop there? I cut another apple into eighths and tucked them in around the outside of the chicken. If I’d had any apple juice I would have poured a bit of that over the outside as well. And if I wasn’t lazy, I would have ran out to the garden and snipped whatever fresh herbs I’ve got out there and stuffed those inside with the apples. But “lazy cooking from scratch”, remember?

Slice a 1/4 cup butter into pieces and lay these in the bottom of a roasting pan. Place your chicken on top. Finally, cut another 1/4 cup butter into pieces and lay them over the chicken. Here’s a look before it went in the oven:

Roast uncovered for 90 minutes, or until it reaches an internal temperature of 180 degrees. My chicken was between 4 and 5 pounds, so your cooking time may be more or less depending on the size of your chicken. Remove it from the oven, cover it with foil, and let it sit for about 30 minutes. This will allow the juices to be pulled back into the chicken, making it nice and juicy.

And here’s how it looks coming out. Beautiful!

To go with our chicken, I fixed this Skinny Cauliflower Mac and Cheese from Damn Delicious.

This is one of my favorite recipe sites, I’ve tried several recipes and never been disappointed. Plus we have quite a bit of cauliflower frozen from our garden this summer, so I’m already looking for different ways to use it. This recipe was fantastic, definitely going into heavy rotation. It was easy to throw together while the chicken was cooking, and I just stuck it in the oven while the chicken was resting.

Let me know this week if you need chickens to stock your freezer for winter! Our last batch will be ready the end of next week!