Roast Bird

A few weeks ago I wrote about making your own chicken stock. Well, an integral part of making your own chicken stock is having the chicken bones to begin with. That brings me to roast chicken. I do so love roast chicken. I admit, I used to be a boneless-skinless chicken breast girl until I got a taste of crispy, salty, yummy chicken skin. Yoza that's good stuff. The best way to get quality chicken skin is to roast up a whole chicken. It's pretty darn easy as long as you have one very special piece of equipment...a thermometer. You can't do it without one. Sorry. Oh, I realize in the olden days they used to roast up chickens and they didn't have thermometers, but let me remind me that the average age of death was 42, and that was probably due to salmonella. They also used to use leaches to suck the poison from the blood, how crazy were those...oh wait, we still sometimes use leaches? Never mind... ANYWHO, if you have the thermometer, you are set! You don't even need a roasting pan. Crazy? No! I'll show you how.

1 roaster chicken

1 stick of butter at room temperature

4 cloves of garlic, chopped

1 small handful of fresh herbs chopped OR a couple teaspoons of dried herbs-I really like thyme and rosemary, but sage, parsley, or many others would be good too.

a roasting pan OR an 8X11 cake pan-if you are using a cake pan, you will also need a couple carrots, some onions, apples or other random hard veggies to line the bottom of the pan

First, dethaw your chicken fully. I use roaster chickens because they are the exact right size for roasting, hence the name. This process of dethawing takes FOREVER. Either stick the bird in the refrigerator DAYS before you want to cook it, or put the bird in a bowl and stick under a trickle of water for a couple hours. Then allow the bird to dry on some towels. (Remember to wash the towels. You don't want to be patting your hair dry and realize you have chicken hair. Nobody likes chicken hair.) Make sure there are no random chicken parts still inside the chicken. Pre-heat oven to 450 degrees.

Next make your butters. Yes, butters, as in plural. I know, right?! Anything with two types of butters has got to be good! Cut the stick 'o butter in half, and put each half into a small bowl. In one bowl add your garlic and a couple pinches of salt and pepper. In the other bowl add the chopped up herbs and no salt and pepper.

If you are using your roasting pan, stick the bird on the rack in the pan. The whole point of a roasting pan is to keep the bird out of it's own juices so the skin can get crispy and golden. So if you are using a cake pan, your job is to arrange the veggies in a kind of bed so the bird will stay pretty dry on the veggies and the juices will flow down to the bottom of the pan.

Next, use your fingers to get in between the skin and the meat of the bird and loosen it up. Do this all over the bird and then grab your garlic butter and start cramming great wads of it into those pockets that you made. How ingenious is that? Butter UNDER the skin?! The skin will keep the butter on the meat, making sure all of the goodness is absorbed as much as possible. It won't matter if this is pretty or not, just cram in it in and smoosh it around until the butter is even. Then take your herb butter and give the outside of the bird a nice little massage. Oh yeeeaaaaah, rub it down, both sides, top and bottom. If your bird isn't dry, the butter won't stick. After the bird is evenly coated, give it a hit of salt and pepper all over.

Place the bird in the middle of the oven and set your timer for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes, flip the bird over and cook for 15 minutes for. After the next 15 minutes, drop the oven temperature down to 375 degrees, and set the timer for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, flip the bird back over and cook until the internal temperature of the meat is at least 170 degrees. This will take at least 30 minutes more, if not 50 minutes or more. Make sure you take the temp. of the bird in both the breast and the thigh in the middle of the meat. The skin should be dark golden brown and delicious. Let the bird rest for 10 minutes or so before serving.

I usually serve this with the homestyle basics, mashed 'taters and boiled carrots, and an apple pie for dessert. When you cut into the chicken, you will find little islands of garlic from the garlic butter, it's like finding the prize in the bottom of the Cracker Jacks again and again! So yummy.

Save those bones for stock by sticking them in a freezer bag and freezing until you are ready to make it.