Roast ALL the Chickens
Okay, perhaps save a few for making eggs (and thus, more chickens), but you won’t regret the ones you roast. They make such a satisfying, show-stopping meal that any meat-eater should prepare it at least once. I think (and hope) you will become a repeat roaster. I’ve made my way through three birds this week, and my poor housemate (a.k.a. grandma) might flee into the woods and live with the foxes if I put any more chicken on the table. Roasting a whole chicken is not as scary as it sounds and much easier than living with foxes. It will make your house smell the most delightful and provide a variety of meals for the week if you’re flying solo. Recipe, other thoughts, and related content below. Ask me questions! There is a comment section at the end. Happy roasting!
Roast Chicken with Vegetables
Feeds 3-4 people. Can be doubled for a crowd. Prep time: 30 min. Cook time: 3 hours. (Does not include resting time for chicken: 2 hours or overnight). This recipe incorporates a blast of high heat to give the outside of the bird some crunch and color followed by a low-temp marathon to cook the meat and retain maximum juiciness. Though it takes some time, this method makes the best roast chicken and is worth the effort for a Sunday dinner, if you have some time to be industrious, and/or love to spend hours in your kitchen anyway as I do.
2 fryer halves (or one 3-4 pound bird, spatchcocked)*
1 tsp kosher sea salt (table salt is denser, so use less)
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp smoked or sweet paprika
1/2 tsp chili flake (optional)
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup dry white wine or vermouth
1 large red onion (any color is fine)
1 lemon
3-4 medium carrots**
1 fennel bulb (tender white part only)**
other stuff you will need
large roasting / sheet pan with 1-2” sides
kitchen shears if spatchcocking your chicken
notes
* Splurge for an organic, free-range bird for the best-tasting chicken.
** Aside from the lemon and onion, you can swap out any vegetables you have on hand like potatoes cut into 1/2” pieces, radishes, parsnips, sliced celery, whole garlic cloves, or even halved cherry tomatoes - simply adjust when they are added to the pan. Tomatoes will only need 10-15 minutes to cook.
Prepare the chicken
Remove neck and gizzards from the cavity, if included, and spatchcock your chicken (see instructions following recipe). Keep the backbone, neck, etc., and roast along with the chicken. If using fryer halves, proceed to the next step.
Season the chicken
Pat the chicken dry with paper towels and lay flat on the roasting pan with the breast side up. Season all over with salt, pepper, and other spices (include backbone and organs if using). Pat the salt onto the skin to make sure it sticks. Let the chicken rest in the refrigerator overnight and then let her sit at room temperature for an hour or two before roasting. You can skip the fridge if you are short on time, but it is worth every minute, so plan ahead.
Prep the vegetables
Prior to roasting, slice your vegetables into rougly 1/2” thick pieces. Keep the rind on the lemon and discard the seeds.
Roast
Preheat oven to 425° F. Drizzle the olive oil over the chicken and roast for 20 minutes until the skin is brown and any oil in the pan is bubbling.
Remove the pan from the oven and pour the wine over the chicken Sprinkle the vegetables around the chicken (some can go under the legs if you are tigh on space). Use a spoon to toss lightly them with the wine / oil mixture and return to the oven.
1/4 cup olive oil over everything
1/2 cup wine after initial roast
Reduce heat to 275° F and continue cooking for 2-1/2 hours, using a large spoon to ladle the pan juices over the chicken and vegetables once every 30 minutes throughout the process.
A low and slow journey to greatness.
Basting with pan juices.
Rest and serve
Remove from the oven and let the chicken rest for 10 minutes before cutting. Serve chicken and vegetables with pasta or rice or as pictured here with roasted cauliflower published in The Magic of Roasting a Vegetable. Sprinkle some fennel fronds for effect and enjoy! P.S. Please eat the lemon rinds and tell your friends! They are by far one of the best components of this dish.
Learn More: Materials & Methods
Roasting
High heat (and science) give us the magic that is brown, crispy, flavorful skin - while low heat holds in juiciness. The Maillard reaction, apparently named for French scientist Louis-Camille Maillard, is what’s happening when we roast or toast anything. The chemical reactions happening on the surface of your dinner are what provide color and flavor. Maillard first wrote about it in the early 1900s and it still happens today every time you send a piece of bread down into the toaster … *magic*. (The Science of Good Cooking by Cook’s Illustrated)
If you don’t have enough time to execute the recipe above, use a whole chicken and roast at 425° F for 75-80 minutes or until the juices from the cavity run clear. The vegetables are seasoned, tossed in olive oil, and spread across the pan as a bed for our bird. This is a better option for weeknight meals. It’s a good practice to check the bird at one hour by tilting it using tongs to see the color of the juices. You can also insert a meat thermometer into the thickest part of the meat. Aim for 150° F in the breast and 175° F in the thigh. About halfway through cooking, check on the vegetables and mix them around to prevent the top layer from drying out. Let the chicken rest for 10-15 minutes before carving and serving.
Whole Chicken: Tie the legs together with some kitchen twine or place some cut lemons in the cavity to prevent the backside of the breasts from getting too hot and drying out.
Spatchcocking (not for the faint at heart)
Spatchcocking is just a fancy word for removing the backbone of a chicken and flattening it out. Use kitchen shears or heavy duty scissors to cut along each side of the backbone, starting at the base. Flip the bird (ha!), and apply gentle pressure until the breastplate cracks and the bird lays flat.
Removing the backbone with kitchen shears. You will hear cracking as you split each rib from the backbone. Proceed and be bold.
Keep the backbone, neck, and organs that came with your chicken and roast them with your chicken. They make great broth.
Fryer Halves are a good, quick alternative and acheive the same result. The also are much easier if you don’t want to deal with organs or cutting.
Why you should season ahead and rest meat overnight.
Salting meats ahead allows seasoning through osmosis - the saltiness on the exterior wants to balance with the unsalted water inside the bird. The longer it sits, the more opportunity there is for the salt to migrate into the interior of the bird, resulting in a juicier, more flavorful chicken. This holds true for any meat. One or two hours of rest is great, but overnight is the best.
What am I going to do with all this chicken?
I promised plans for leftovers - and here I shall deliver. Anytime I roast (or even buy - blasphemy) a chicken, I use the bones to make stock at the end of our bird’s long journey. In between, our girl can take on many delectable forms to get you through the week.
Chicken Broth / Stock / Soup
An indispensable magic weapon in the kitchen: place leftover bones in a pot that can hold them plus enough water to fully submerge them. Add a roughly chopped onion, 2-3 carrots, a few stalks of celery, and any leftover fennel stalks as well as some salt and pepper. You can also throw in lemon rind and whole garlic cloves. Simmer on low to medium heat for at least two hours until the water becomes a beautiful golden bronze color and your whole house smells once again of delicious chicken-y goodness. For stock, strain all the solids and save the stock. Add more salt and pepper to taste. For chicken soup, pick any meat from the bones and discard the bones. Boil some pasta or make some rice or other grains and serve with the soup and lots of fresh parsley, dill, and a shot of white wine vinegar.
Stock vegetables
In the pot before
Chicken Sandwiches
Cut some thinnish slices of breast meat and serve on some good bread. Butter or mayo the bread and sprinkle with a little salt and pepper. Add some fresh romaine or arugula, a tomato slice, and a slice of leftover bacon. Eat with potato chips of course!
Chicken Cacciatore
Take any leftover thighs and legs and simmer on low in a pot of The Best Tomoato Sauce I’ve Ever Made for an hour or two. Once the meat falls off the bones, remove the bones and serve with your favorite pasta!
Chicken Salad
A serious favorite in our house. Roughly chop the breast meat and then smash into a paste with your hands. The chicken will almost looks sandy. Add a heaping tablespoon of good mayonnaise (less if you arent’ using all of the breat meat). Finely dice some celery and celery leaves to make about 1/4 cup. Add 1 tsp onion powder, 1/2 tsp dry dill, some finely chopped green onion, 1/2 tsp celery seed, a squeeze of lemon, and salt and pepper. Serve on crackers or sandwiches or eat with a spoon because you deserve it.
Learn More: Research, Testing, & Lagniappe
People have been eating chickens for a long time (sorry chickens - you can run but you cannot avoid the fryer or honey-barbecue dipping sauce forever).
In 2012, Smithsonian Magazine published a really funny, well-written history: How the Chicken Conquered the World, dating back to 5400 B.C. China (and beyond). Our juicy companions likely descended from red junglefowl living in Southeast Asia and have been with us for a very long time. They weren’t always food, though. “For thousands of years, exploitation of chickens was confined to symbolic and social domains such as cockfighting.” according to a 2015 study published by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.
Recipe Research
The earliest recipe I could find where a chicken was cooked and eaten hailed from 1st Century A.D. Rome in Apicius, the oldest known published collection of recipes. The detailed translation of “Parthian Chicken” from the Latin by Sally Grainger, published in 1958, calls for 1 medium chicken, a lump or resin about the size of a bean, olive oil, and fish sauce. I don’t think we want resin or fish sauce, but we’re getting warmer!
A more contemporary recipe (relatively speaking) appeared in 1901’s Picayune Creole Cookbook for “Poulet Rôti” (roast chicken) relying heavily on a recipe for Turkey in the same book. Earlier French books likely also contain Poulet Rôti and informed Julia Child’s version in her famed 1961 classic, Mastering the Art of French Cooking.
For the last few years, I’ve used the hot-and-fast method mentioned in the recipe above - and simply enjoy the drama of bringing a whole, stuffed bird with the crispiest skin and the juiciest meat from the oven to the table. I followed Chef and Author Michael Ruhlman’s method in his bible of a cookbook (and one of my most beloved cookbooks), Ruhlman’s Twenty, to make my first roast chicken a few years ago. His recipe for “Perfect Roasted Chicken” is published on Serious Eats, here.
Discovering Opelousas Chicken - the Inspiration for Low-and-Slow
From my childhood, I remember hearing of “Opelousas Chicken” from my grandmother and have faint memories of a roasting pan full of deeply browned chicken parts that tasted very good! When I mentioned chicken recipes to her, this one came up first. Apparently, Opelousas chicken (or Cajun chicken as it is referred to by our Yankee cousins) is known in the outer circles of our family from visits “down south.” My grandma taught her sister how to make it, who also taught her children. So, Cajun Chicken has at least made it across the continental US. What’s different and so striking about Opelousas Chicken is that it stays in the oven for a full three hours and is the juiciest, most delicious chicken most people have ever tasted (at least that’s what they say).
The recipes I found here in the house hailed from the Pirate’s Pantry and Tony Chachere’s Cookbook - the famed man whose face appears on the side of Tony’s Cajun Seasoning, which I think you can find in most grocery stores. They call for hour fryer halves and a full cup of oil! There’s also paprika, water, and no vegetables. For our recipe, we’ve added vegetables and wine, and use olive oil (and less of it) to get similar results with even more flavor (and a whole meal). Things I will remember: Opelousas Chicken “Feeds 6 good eaters or 12 children,” Tony Chachere was actually just a jolly insurance salesman, and my grandmother’s hand-written note on the recipe, “tres bon.” Low-and-slow is the way to go. Happy roasting and adventurous cooking!
—WD
