Food: Roast Chicken Comfort

Pardon the interruption, it's been a while since the last update.  It's been a busy month, both at work and at home.  We've been making a conscious effort to try and cook dinner most nights, which usually means that our whole night is taken up.  By the time I get home, I have to start dinner.  By the time we finish eating and cleaning up, it's almost bedtime in a vain effort to get enough sleep for another day at work, leaving little time for other things.  Rinse and repeat.  It takes a lot of effort to break out of the routine, but now that the summer is almost here, it's starting to get easier to try and get out of the house.

Since we've been cooking a lot, even if we don't have time to make something fancy, we'll still try and cook a something quick that doesn't sacrifice taste.  One of those dishes that everyone should know how to make is a roast chicken.  It's one of those meals that is deceptively complex---it looks like a gourmet meal, but is actually very easy to make.  It's also a great meal for a budget, since often buying a whole chicken is cheaper than buying the separate parts!  Not only do you get more meat, but you can use the bones and giblets for making stock.  It almost spiritually brings you closer to the food---you're not just working with processed, unrecognizable fillets of protein.  You use the whole animal without wasting any part.  It's comfort food and very Americana and it wasn't that long ago that most politicians promised a chicken in every oven.  Yet I think the roast chicken has sadly been replaced in most households with chicken nuggets.

To make a roast chicken, all you really need to do is sprinkle some salt and pepper all over and plop it into an oven for a couple of hours until the internal temperature registers 180 'F.  That's it, it's so simple that anyone can do it.  Taking a step beyond that, the variations are almost endless.  Since it's such an easy recipe, a roast chicken serves as a springboard for almost any culinary directions.  For this recipe, we decided to make a slightly stronger rub to give the chicken a slightly deeper taste.  We used:

Dry Rub
2 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1/8 tsp ground cloves
1/8 tsp ground allspice
1/8 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp ground cinnamon
Pinch of cayenne
Freshly ground black pepper

We patted the dry rub over the chicken and then placed chunks of butter around the bird---we were lazy, since you could rub the butter all over and under the skin for an even crispier taste, but this way the butter melts and bastes the bird during the cooking process.  We threw a few garlic cloves and half of a lemon inside the cavity for good measure.  The bird was then placed over a pillowy bed of roughly chopped vegetables, including potatoes, carrots, mushrooms, garlic cloves, and onions. The breast-side is placed down so that it doesn't overcook and dry out while the thighs and legs are still cooking.

The fully assembled bird ready to go into the oven.

The whole assembly was placed into an oven pre-heated at 475 'F.  The high heat is to avoid the initial temperature drop after everything is put in.  The heat was then reduced to 375 'F and the chicken was roasted for about 2 hours, checking for done-ness using an internal meat thermometer.

And that's it!  The chicken came out great and the vegetables were nice and soft.  Even better, the vegetables had soaked up the butter and chicken drippings, giving them a nice savory flavor.  After taking out the chicken and vegetables, you can use the residual drippings to create a gravy---you just need to add a little bit of flour and water to the chicken drippings and bring to a simmer.  

The finished product

Not only is this easy, but it also makes the entire house smell wonderful.  Even better, it doesn't actually take too long---we were able to prepare this after coming home from work.  Unlike slow cook recipes, which require the whole day, the chicken meat is still firm and the skin is a nice, crisp, golden brown.  Since we're using the whole bird, there's enough leftovers to last for several meals---this makes a nice lunch and sure beats bringing a ham sandwich to work.