Roasted Chicken for Dummies

I love roasted chicken. Fer serious. Whole chickens are super cheap, they're super easy to cook, and you can do so much with the leftovers.

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.

Roasted Chicken For Dummies

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.


This is what mine looked like right before it hit the stove.

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.

*drool*

*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.

Fried Chicken and Broccoli Casserole

I have a confession. I've been cheating. :( I made dinner on the 2nd, which is what I'll be writing about now, and the day after (which I will eventually post, though I have no pictures), and Chris has made dinner a couple times, but.. I've been cheating.

There have been several nights where I've been too depressed, lazy, or unprepared to make dinner. Fast food as again invaded my life.

Forgive me. :(

But! I do have a post for you now, and I'll be making dinner tonight for a gathering of friends. I'm even all prepared for it and everything. :)

So! On to food things.

Deep South Fried Chicken with Gravy and Broccoli Casserole

These are just for the broccoli.. I didn't think ahead far enough to take a picture of the chicken stuff.

You'll notice the bag of frozen broccoli.. The store was completely out of it when I went in. I really wasn't happy about shelling out the extra dough for the frozen stuff ($4 for what was essentially one good sized broccoli. Ugh.) This also meant I had to defrost the stuff for a bit before I could do anything with it. Annoying,ugh.

If you're doing it completely from scratch, I'm not sure if you would need to partially cook the broccoli first or not, but I imagine you wouldn't have to, considering the cooktime for the casserole.

I started the casserole first, because I knew it took longer to cook. Put your broccoli in a bowl.

Follow with mushroom soup..



2 beaten eggs..



I only chopped about half an onion, but it's up to you..



Shredded cheddar cheese..



And a couple big heaping spoonfuls of mayonnaise.

Mmmm...

Mix it all up, and if it isn't already in a casserole dish put it in one.



Apply crushed Ritz generously over the top..

Or in my case, "Safeway Classic Baked Snack Crackers"

And then pour melted butter as evenly as you can over the whole thing.



Put it into your oven uncovered and bake for 45 minutes.

Once you get the casserole to cooking, start in on the chicken.

I actually don't have any pictures of the prep for the chicken.. Give me a break, I'm new at this.

In about 2 cups of plain ol' all purpose flour, mix in equal parts salt and pepper until you can see the little pepper bits when you stir it all together. You can also add in paprika, garlic powder, or pretty much anything else that you have a hankerin' for. Keep in mind, though, that simple is usually better in this case. Keep it to one or two additions.

Dunk the chicken in the flour mixture until both sides or coated evenly.

Melt about 3/4 stick of butter in a frying pan over medium high heat. When the butter is melted, add the chicken.



Fry about 5 minutes or so on each side until browned.



Turn chicken to it's original side and turn the heat down to medium low and cover for 25 minutes.

Remove cover and flip chicken. Cook until both sides are a delicious mouth watery golden brown and the juices run clear.

Remove from pan and remove pan from heat.

Oh baby..

About now the casserole should have about 10 minutes left.. just enough time for milk gravy.

Had a couple heaping spoonfuls of flour to the juices in the pan, followed with some milk. Scraping the bottom of the pan with the spatula, stir everything until it evens out into a yummy gravy. If it's too thick, add more milk. Too thin, add more flour.

Salt and pepper to taste, then remove the gravy into the gravy vessel of your choice.



And now the casserole is done. :)

*drool*

Serve with a salad or mashed potatoes if you think far enough ahead (unlike me), the gravy is wonderful on taters.



Results

Casserole: Holy crap this stuff is good. I couldn't stop eating it. Seriously, I went back for thirds. I never go back for thirds.

Chicken: Also delicious, but I cooked mine a tad too long. It burned a bit. :( Not as good as I've made before, but amazing none the less.

Gravy: Unfortunately, because one of the breasts burned, the gravy had a faint burned taste to it. Laaame. But still yummy. :)