How to Roast a Chicken

Or: Why you should get intimate with your meat and why Broccolini rocks.

So this is really a post about last night's dinner. Roasting a whole chicken has to be one of the most satisfying and relatively simple culinary endeavors. I'm in the midst of my first real break from the stage all year (January through April I was working on 3 overlapping productions), and I finally have time to cook at home! Yay. My recipe for roasted chicken originally comes from the culinary wizardry of Georgia Moran, but I've been doing this without directions for a few years and it always comes out perfect.

I start with an air-chilled whole chicken from Mary's Chickens. Air chilling is a method of bringing down the body temperature of the chickens after slaughtering and before further processing. Most chicken processors in the U.S. use water chilling, but air-chilling is more of a European practice. It's benefits include increased food safety (instead of all the chickens taking a bath together, they're strung up clothes-line style) and better flavor (they don't absorb so much water so the flavor is more concentrated).

It's not cheap: my birdie came to about $11. It probably would have been around $8 or $9 if I had gone with all-natural but not air chilled bird. Honestly I don't even know what you would pay for a conventionally raised chicken somewhere like Safeway as I've been shopping natural grocery my whole adult life, but 10 bucks doesn't seem like too much for the life of another being. Especially when you know that that being wasn't trapped in a cage and injected with a bunch of junk it's whole life. Furthermore, I just don't eat that much meat so when I do it's more of a treat and I'm okay shelling out a little more for it. Most of us would do well to eschew meat more often, for our health, the environment, and our pocketbooks.

Another gourmand who's laying off the meat is the New York Times food writer Mark Bittman. He wrote Food Matters, where he talks about how his "vegan before 6" diet helped him lose weight, lower his cholesterol, and he believes is helping to slow global warming (commercial meat production is one of the leading contributers to global warming). He calls himself a "Lessmeatarian," which resonates for me as someone who enjoys meat on occasion and think it can be consumed in an ethical way.

And speaking of consumption, let's talk about roasting these suckers! Here is the recipe I use for a flawlessly juicy bird every time:

1. Preheat oven to 350. Stick 2 tablespoons of butter in a bowl in the oven to soften.
2. Mince 2-3 cloves of garlic (or more, why not) and mash them into your softened butter with 2 generous pinches of salt.
3. Pat your bird down with a paper towel.
4. Now it's time to get to know the dead creature in front of you. If the thought of massaging a dead animal with butter grosses you out, I urge you to seriously reconsider your meat consumption. With clean hands take scoops of butter and rub it under the skin of the chicken, getting the back, legs, breasts, and anywhere else you can reach. You will have to sort of gently separate the skin from the meat as you do this. Excess butter on your hands should be rubbed on the outside of the chicken.
5. It goes in the oven for 1 hour (breasts down), but set your timer for 50 min at which time turn it over, turn your oven up, and let the breasts get roasty for the last 10 min.
6. Remove from the oven and let rest for 10 min before carving. I'm not great at carving, so here's a link to a video: http://www.pbs.org/everydayfood/tips/tip_11.html

I served this with a garlicky broccolini and white bean dish, recipe at the Delicious Living website.

The recipe calls for broccoli rabe which I don't have that much experience with and was thusly very excited about using. Unfortunately I couldn't find rabe so I went with baby broccoli (broccolini or my favorite name: broccolette) and kale. I also didn't do the pasta with it (no need to overdo the carbs on a Tuesday night afterall), but I would recommend doubling the beans if not using the pasta. Broccolini makes an easy and elegant side to any meal, I love it's long tender stalks and cute little florets. Often I'll briefly steam it, until it's bright green, and simply serve it with olive oil, lemon juice, salt & pepper. This broccolini and bean dish is garnished with feta and red pepper flakes, though it would be equally delicious and vegan-ized without the feta.


Served with a 9 buck red table wine.

Table garnished with calla lilies from the garden!