Do They Look Mad To You?

Ever other post my photo shows up on my reader.  Let's see if I'm lucky tonight.

It wasn't until after I sat the chicken on the counter that I notice my friends angrily eyeing our dinner.  Yep, I can just hear them squawking now, " The nerve of her!  How dare she?"  I laughed and ran for the camera.  Well since I've got the picture and  my roasted chicken turned out so good, I might as well share the simple recipe with you.


We don't like a lot of seasoning like thyme or rosemary so it really is quick.  It was falling off the bone by the time I cut it and ummmm...it was super moist.

Ingredients

• One 5lb chicken
• salt and black pepper (I don't use to much pepper)
• 4-5 clove
• 1/2 small onion

Preheat the oven to 450°F. Rinse the chicken, dry with paper towels.

*Great new tip that I just learned.  The less it steams and the drier the heat, the better.

Salt and pepper the cavity, then truss the bird. Trussing is simple.  You can see how just by looking trussing up online.  Basically you just take twine and tie the legs together, like in my picture above and tuck the wings under.  It was so tender when I took it out that the wings were pulling away from the bird.  When you truss a bird, the wings and legs stay close to the body and keep it from drying out. It also helps the chicken to cook evenly.  It just looks nicer too.

 

Now, salt the chicken - I like to put a lot of salt all over the skin of the bird so that it has a nice uniform coating that will result in a crisp, salty, flavorful skin. When it's cooked, you should still be able to make out the salt baked onto the crisp skin.  You can also season to taste with pepper but I don't.

Place the chicken in a roasting pan and put the chicken in the oven. I usually baste my chicken with butter or the birds juice - but I didn't this time. Like I said I didn't want steam at least for now.  I want it to be as dry a heat as possible.  And basting it would only  create steam, which I don't want.   I decided to use some of the dripping to baste the bird the last 15 mins.  Roast it until it's done, approximately 1 hour.  Baste once again and remove it from oven and let it rest for 15 minutes on a cutting board.

 

This is the way I plan on cooking all my birds from now on. That is if my other birds don't peck me first.