Sunday, August 21, 2011

THE ONE HUNDRED AND SECOND WAY TO ROAST A CHICKEN!

I'm on a bit of a Barefoot Contessa run at the moment, along with Tiffany.
Was just the 3 of us for Sunday dinner so, to Alan's disappointment I did not do my regular roast chicken ( I say 'mine', the recipe it is based on is Delia Smith's). I made Ina's 'Perfect Roast Chicken', how can you resist that title??  Main difference is that this has no stuffing, seemed appropriate for  a summer evening,  you stuff the cavity with lemon and garlic, sounded good to me!
Verdict is 'pretty good'.  You roast this bird at a higher temperature, with no foil  protecting the breast.  The result is a delicious, crispy skin BUT the breast meat was a little dry.  The gravy was very tasty which compensated for the dryness of the breast meat.  Alan and I debated various methods to achieve both - hopefully I will be successful at that and will be publishing a book of my own!
While I was breaking all the traditions tonight, I did not do any roasted vegetables.  I made Roatsed New potatoes in parchment and steamed green beans.  The potatoes were from a recipe in the NYTimes which I cannot find right now but easy enough to include here.  Worked well with the chicken as the oven temp worked for both.



  • Fingerling potatoes ( or a mixture with red, white and purple pots)
  • virgin olive oil
  • garlic cloves, peeled and left whole
  • herb of your choice: rosemary, oregano or sage
  • chopped parsley to serve
You can figure out quantities, depending on how many you are serving, be generous with the oil.  Mix the potatoes in a bowl with oil, garlic and herb, season well.  Put contents of bowl onto a sheet of parchment  which is on a baking sheet.  Make a parcel by folding the top and tucking in the sides.  Bake at 450 degrees C for about an hour, can adjust depending on whatever else is going on in your oven. Transfer parcel to serving dish, open parchment and sprinkle parsley.
I happened to have some purple and fingerling potatoes, so mixed them.  Visually it was pretty appealing but I have to say that the fingerlings taste so much better than the purple potatoes, shame, wish it weren't so!

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