When I was originally trying to be money conscious I started looking into whole chickens and what I could do with them. I found a few recipes for roasting them that were pretty inspiring; they all seemed really straightforward! So I would go out, buy a chicken, set about following the recipe, and put it in the oven for however long it called for.
It never. Ever. Ever cooked all the way through. Wtf? I seriously tried FOUR different recipes trying to figure this out. Some called for flipping, some called for changing temperatures, some wanted a tin-foil tent, some wanted it lifted. Holy crap, dude, I was confused.
It finally took moving, losing our internet because we couldn't afford it, and stealing several cookbooks from my mother before I finally came across it. The recipe. Oh yes. It was different! Higher temperature, longer cooktime, raise the chicken... it all made sense.
It came out of Cooking For Dummies. >_> Embarrassing.
I didn't follow it exactly (it called for some odd procedures and dammit I just wanted to cook a bird), but from what I did do it totally worked amazingly.
Ingredients:
1 whole chicken about 3 lbs*, washed and rinsed out
Half a stick butter, melted
Salt
Pepper
Assorted dried aromatic herbs
2 cups water
1 Lemon, sliced in half
1 Onion, chopped into wedges
Special kitchen things you'll need:
A brush
A cooling rack
A rectangular deep baking dish the cooling rack will stay on top of
Preheat the oven to 425ºF.
Making sure your chicken doesn't have any gizzards, livers, or whatever else it comes with inside of it, rinse it out. If you want, save those innards for chicken stock later.
Place the cooling rack on top off the baking dish, making sure it won't slide off suddenly. Put the chicken breast side up on top of that.
Brush the melted butter liberally all over your chicken. Juice the lemons over the top of the chicken trying to get it as evenly as possibly. Stuff the lemon and onion inside of the chicken. Salt and pepper all over.
Pour the water into the baking dish. Add your aromatic herbs to the water. I usually toss in a mix of oregano, sage, parsley, marjoram, and a bunch of other things typically associated with Italian cooking.
This would be the point that you can play with your chicken a bit. You could add something like turmeric or paprika on top of the chicken to add some extra flavor. Even cumin or nutmeg would be yummy... It always changes based on my mood at the time.
Place your chicken in the oven in the middle rack and cook for 50-60 minutes*.
Now, a lot of people use meat thermometers here, but every meat thermometer I have must have been crap because they never moved. Apparently my chickens are room temperature when I pull them out of the oven. This being the case, I resort to the less-pretty method of cutting the chicken at the breast and thigh to make sure it's cooked all the way through.
It's all ready when the chicken doesn't have any pink or red when you cut it and the juices run clear. Let it sit for about 10 minutes so you don't burn yourself slicing it up.
*NOTE: If your chicken is larger than 3-4 lbs add 10-20 minutes of cooktime per pound. I didn't and it actually was a little raw towards the bone. :(
Results:
Oh mama. Soooo yummy. The water helps keep everything juicy and yummy and delicious and the herbs add a really subtle difference to the flavor of the meat. The skin, I might add, is to die for. If you aren't a skin eater, just TRY it and TRUST me. If you still don't like it I WILL EAT IT FOR YOU.
Except for being a little raw like I mentioned (I bought a larger bird because I was feeding people other than Chris and I), there was still enough properly cooked meat on here to make up for it. :D One of my favorite recipes.
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