Sunday Roast Chicken: A New Story of an Old Tradition and The Best Roast Chicken You'll Ever Have

Hi!

No, no, don't worry it's just me again. Sorry, didn't mean to startle you by disappearing for 4 months and then reappearing out of nowhere like that. :)

For those of you keeping score, I am sadly failing at the "blog at least twice a month" goal on my #33list. Thankfully, the beauty of such lists is that one changes them as one wishes, and crossing the finish line is all about how much one enjoys a year of life and not at all about ticking boxes. So I'm going to skip over the unchecked boxes, and go straight into the things that are adding a little joy to my life right now.

Like this:

Last year I took the time to create a spreadsheet of my entire repertoire of dinner meals and organized them into categories that corresponded to a day of the week: pork-based meals on Monday, ground beef dishes on Tuesday, soups and stews on Wednesday, pizza/pasta on Saturday, etc. One of the things I decided to do was roast a chicken every Sunday night.

Besides being the cheapest meat one can buy, roasting a weekly chicken also provides enough for lunch sandwiches or salads later in the week, or even a second dinner. And then of course there's the bones for making broth, which I slow simmer in the crock pot almost every week. With a little planning, I can stretch one chicken for up to 4 meals. Just this week, for instance, we ate the leg quarters from this very recipe with brown rice and salad Sunday night, I fed our ravenous 10-month-old small pieces of breast meat almost every day for lunch or dinner, I made Wednesday's beef stew with my own slow-cooked chicken broth, and I'm using the rest of the leftover meat for the famous Morgan homemade chicken taquitos probably right now as you're reading this.

But economy and convenience are not the only reasons I make Sunday roast chicken. Yes, it is wonderfully affordable and virtually effortless, but it's also comfort food at its most elegant. There are few things that make me feel more like the perfectly coiffed 1950's society housewives of yore than pulling a gorgeous roast hen from the oven all sizzling and covered in golden brown crispy skin, and carving it neatly into juicy, warm pieces served dripping with homemade gravy.

Are you salivating yet?

I know oven-roasted chicken has a reputation for being finicky and turning out dry and flavorless, but take it from the girl who's been doggedly perfecting the technique every week for more than six months: it's easy. Maybe you've seen recipes like this one, which lists no less than 8 ingredients in addition to the actual bird, including 4 herbs in 2 different preparations. While this might be the most amazingly flavorful roast chicken you'll ever have (it's still on my list of roast chicken recipes to try...as soon as I can make a special trip to Whole Foods for culinary lavender), I contend that the best roast chicken you'll ever have only needs one foolproof ingredient. Just one: salt. A well-salted chicken is a flavorful, moist, and succulent chicken, and all the culinary lavender in La Frahnce cannot save an under-salted bird. The only other key ingredient is temperature + cooking time, which admittedly can vary depending on your oven. After weeks of testing in our new apartment, and with a little feedback from a friend (thanks B!), I suggest starting with 75 minutes at 400 degrees and adjusting from there.

So, without further ado, I give you simply the best roast chicken you'll ever have:

Salty Chicken

N.B. Instructions are given in the order that involves the least amount of raw chicken handling and obligatory hand-washing possible.

Ingredients
4-5 lb chicken
salt
that's it
yes, really

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Pour about 2 tablespoons of salt into a small bowl and set aside. Place a couple of paper towels in your roasting dish or pan, and set aside 2 more paper towels. Place the chicken breast side down on the paper towels in the roasting pan and remove giblets. Discard giblets or save for making gravy (I never use them). Use extra paper towels to pat the chicken dry inside and out. (Excess moisture turns to steam in the oven, which will prevent the skin from getting crispy--and we don't want that.) Generously sprinkle with salt, using about 1 tablespoon on the inside and 1 tablespoon on the outside. Remove the paper towels from the pan and turn breast side up. You could at this point use kitchen twine to do a complicated trussing technique, or even just tie the legs together. But let me tell you a secret: the bird will roast just fine without it.

Now you can wash your hands. Sigh of relief.

Place the chicken in a 400 degree oven and roast for 1 hour and 15 minutes. About halfway through roasting, you should hear the chicken begin to sizzle. That's good: it means the skin is getting nice and crispy. :)

After about 75 minutes, remove from oven and let rest for at least 15 minutes. This is a 4th-quarter tip: carving immediately lets the juices evaporate, causing the meat to dry out. Give it at least 15 minutes for the temperature of the whole bird to start cooling, and the juices will redistribute into the meat, keeping it moist, buttery, and tender.

Now are you salivating?

Carve at the leg and thigh joints, and down the middle of the breast bone. Serve over rice or mashed potatoes, next to a green salad, or with the best mac and cheese you'll ever have. If you feel so inclined, you could also whip up a quick gravy by cooking 1-2 tablespoons flour in a tablespoon of melted butter, slowly drizzling in all the cooking juices from the roasting pan, and simmering until thickened, about 5 minutes.  Feeds up to 4 hungry adults, or 6 light eaters if served with a lot of side dishes.

Salivate good times, come on.

And finally, gratuitous baby picture:

Did you ever??

Happy roasting,

g.