Sunday Roast Chicken: How to Have Dinner Like You're In Paris for $10 or Less

Really this post should be titled, “The Chicken That Started It All.” This is the first roast chicken recipe I ever tried, and it has remained my go-to, tried-and-true, “impress the guest” dish through every stage of my life, including grad school, living abroad, and wowing my husband as a newlywed (it worked!). It meets almost all my criteria for a perfect recipe in that it’s cheap, requires minimal effort, and looks and tastes way fancier than it is. If I could pull off cooking a green vegetable in the same pan as the chicken, it would tick the all-important “one pot meal” box, and it would truly be the perfect recipe. (If you, gentle reader, figure out some way to do that, by all means share!)

Life with a toddler: it begins.

If you remember, last year I started cooking my way through all the recipes in Ina Garten’s Barefoot in Paris. My sister and I discovered this cookbook at the public library more than ten years ago, and we loved it so much that we checked it out at least once a year, sometimes just to enjoy the beautiful pictures. Full of gorgeous, full-page color photos not only of luscious foodscapes but also seductive scenes from the City of Lights itself, we were captivated from the very first bite of Herb-Baked Eggs (p. 64); captivated by the flavor, and the fact that this elegant dish only called for ingredients we already had on hand at a cost of about $10—just like this roast chicken recipe. Who knew Paris could be so cheap? I wanted to buy the book, but my life was far too transient at the time to justify building up a personal library.

It could not be more fitting, then, that I got my very own copy while I was living in, you guessed it: Paris. I thought I had moved there to stay, but I couldn’t ignore the handsome, earnest California boy who insisted on calling me every day, and who wouldn’t stop asking me what I wanted for my birthday. He sent me my favorite cookbook, and a card so swoony and romantic that I knew I wouldn’t be living in Paris for long. ;)  

Three years and a baby later, Lemon Chicken with Croutons still graces our Sunday night table regularly. I love, just love the fact that one of the first grown-up recipes I ever made, one that’s seen me from starving student to wife and mother, will be a dish my children grow up on. Comfort food, with a taste of Paris.

Lemon Chicken with Croutons

Just barely adapted from Barefoot in Paris

4-5 lb chicken

large yellow onion, cut into 6-8 wedges

olive oil

kosher salt

freshly ground black pepper

2 lemons, quartered

2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

fresh baguette, cut into small cubes

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Place the onion wedges in the bottom of a roasting pan and toss with a little olive oil. Discard any giblets from the chicken and dry inside and out with paper towels. Sprinkle the cavity generously with salt and pepper and place the lemons inside. Place the chicken on top of the onions in the roasting pan and brush the outside of the chicken with melted butter. Sprinkle generously with salt and pepper.

Here Ina knowledgably instructs you to “tie the legs together with kitchen string and tuck the wing tips under the body of the chicken.” You could do that. Or, you could skip it because you can’t be bothered, and (gasp!) the bird will turn out delectably edible all the same. Your call.

Roast for 1 ¼ to 1 ½ hours, until the juices run clear when you cut between the leg and thigh. When done, tent loosely with foil and let rest at least 15 minutes (but only if you want the meat to be melt-in-your-mouth tender and juicy).

While the chicken roasts, put the baguette cubes in a large bowl and drizzle generously with olive oil. Season with salt and pepper to taste, and toss until croutons are well coated with oil. Spread on a foil-lined baking sheet. Once the chicken is done and resting, place the croutons in the 400 degree oven and let toast until golden brown, turning once, about 10-12 minutes. (I like to use the toasting time to throw together a salad.)

To serve, pile the croutons on a plate, place your preferred part of the chicken on top, and scoop large spoonfuls of caramelized onions and golden broth over everything. This is possibly the only roast chicken recipe for which gravy would actually detract from the meal. The cooking juices are incredibly flavorful, and best enjoyed lightly spooned over the croutons. For all you staunch gravy fans out there, let me assure you: one bite of chewy-crisp toasted baguette bursting with rich, lemony broth will convert you on the spot. For this one recipe, at least.

Bon appétit,

g.

Shout out to my friend Jo for being the lovely food model!

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.