Herb Roasted Chicken

You know, I just don’t roast whole chickens enough. Not only do I love roast chicken, but the el cheapo factor here is great, too. A whole chicken is under $1/lb. You can use the leftover meat to make tons of things, and you can make stock with the carcass. So really, you are getting 3-4 meals per chicken at a very low cost. Anyhow, that is enough foodie economics for today.

I decided to roast this chicken with some of my favorite herbs, and alongside potatoes. To me there is no point in roasting a chicken if it’s not roasting alongside potatoes 🙂 I was planning on using fingerlings, but they were out at the grocery store, so I got really tiny baby yukons. I left them whole, and chopped up some parsnips so they could also roast in the delicious chicken dripping goodness.  

Tomorrow I plan on making some stock with the carcass, and I’m sure I will be updating the blog with a few recipes using the leftover chicken.

Roast Chicken, My Way

1 whole (5 lb.) chicken
1 onion, quartered
1 lemon, quartered
8 cloves garlic
bunch of fresh thyme leaves, plus 1 Tbsp. additional fresh chopped thyme
a sprig of rosemary
a few sage leaves
2 Tbsp. butter, softened
a little olive oil
baby yukon gold potatoes whole (or halved if you think they are too big)
parsnips, cut into 1″ chunks or any other veggies of your choosing
salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 425 and place your rack in the lower third of the oven (so that the chicken will basically be cooking in the center of the oven).

Clean/scrub the baby gold potatoes. Add them to the roasting pan with the parsnips and add just a little bit of oil and salt and pepper. Toss together. Nestle the roasting rack into the pan (you don’t need a roasting rack, but I prefer to use one; if you don’t have one, make a bed with the vegetables and put the chicken over those).

Remove the giblets/neck from the cavity of the chicken. Rinse the chicken and pat it dry. Sprinkle the cavity with salt and pepper, and then stuff it with the fresh bunch of thyme leaves, lemon, onion, garlic, sage and rosemary.

Mix the Tbsp. of fresh chopped thyme with the softened butter. Carefully pull the skin of the chicken away from the meat and rub the herb butter in between the skin and the meat (you can just put a few globs of the butter in front of the breast and then massage the butter back; be sure to also add a little to the drumsticks/thighs). Rub the skin with just a little bit of olive oil and sprinkle liberally with salt and pepper. 

Place the chicken on the roasting rack (or on the vegetables) and roast until the internal temperature reaches 170 (check at the thickest part of the thigh). Place the chicken under a foil tent for 10 minutes before serving.

Pan Sauce

I did make a pan sauce just by adding a couple cloves of smashed garlic to the drippings on the stovetop. Then I deglazed with a little white wine and added some chicken broth. If you want more of a gravy,  just add some flour before you add the wine.