A healthy and delicious meal served and cooked in a single dish, when you use this recipe for roast chicken. Add seasoning and let this bird cook itself!
Roast chicken is without a doubt an easy dish to prepare and this bird offers a number of ways to roast it since it works so well with different seasoning. The summers I spent with my grandfather in Maui, I learned a lot about raising chickens. These homegrown birds were the best flavored and meatiest birds that I‘ve eaten.
The process of raising the baby chick to a full grown bird was fun while we were growing up. The process of preparing this bird for a meal was without a doubt a learning curve in food appreciation and today I’m thankful for the grocery stores.
Chicken is one of the smaller poultry meats and it’s been a source of protein for human consumption throughout the world as far back as 600 BC. We’ve also seen a surge in parts of the chicken with the demand across the USA for Buffalo wings. And some old favorites as appetizers with the chicken livers wrapped in bacon and chicken gizzards; deep dried.
I grew up in a household where nothing went to waste so I still remember my mother simmering chicken feet in a broth. We’ll save that one for another recipe down the road. Here’s some chicken talk; when you see these birds in the store, you may see chickens labeled as fryers or broilers. They really are the same and both make great roasted chicken meals. These birds are young chickens, about 7 weeks old and weight in about 2-4 pounds.
When it comes to seasoning, butter or garlic tucked under the skin adds an additional flavor to the chicken meat. I try to keep the outside seasoning for the roast chicken simple; rub the outside with olive oil or butter; some salt and pepper; it works wonders for this bird.
The next seasoning for this dish is placed into the cavity, depending on the size of your chicken you can stuff it with a fruit or sage breadstuffing. Or keep it simple and stuff the cavity with lemons and herbs like rosemary and thyme. All of these seasoning will penetrate the meat of the chicken and give you a wonderful meal.
There’s another area for seasoning and that is to surround the chicken with vegetables that will add even more flavor and give you the liquid for a savory gravy. I like serving this dish with a wild rice and the roasted vegetables. Here’s my recipe for a roast chicken:
Table of Contents
Easy Roast Chicken
Ingredients:
- 1 3- 4 lb. Chicken
- Herbs- 4 twigs of each rosemary, thyme
- Olive oil
- 6 pieces garlic
- 1 Lemon – quartered
- 1 Onion – rough chop
- 2 Carrots – rough chop
- 2 Celery – rough chop
Preparation:
- Preheat you oven 350. Remove all of the contents from the neck and body cavity. Set them aside. These will make a good broth that you can store and use later.
- Rinse and dry your chicken and tuck 6 pieces of the garlic under the skin Rub the outside of the chicken with olive oil; salt and pepper. Cut half of the lemon into 2 quarters and tuck it with the 3 twigs of herbs into the cavity of the chicken.
- Set your rack up for the chicken and place it into your pan; put the chicken breast up on the rack. Place the onion, carrots and celery in a bowl, squeeze the remaining half lemon juice on the vegetables. Drizzled some olive oil on them, salt and pepper to your taste and place them in the pan around the chicken. Next chop the 4th sprig of thyme and rosemary and sprinkle it onto the vegetables.
- Cook the chicken for 1-2 hours – you can tell that the chicken is done when you pierce the chicken and the juices are clear. Once the chicken is done, remove the rack with the chicken and let it sit for a moment.
- While the roast chicken is cooling, put the vegetables in a bowl and set them aside. Pour the juices from the chicken pan in a medium sauce pan for the gravy. Sprinkle some flour to thicken the sauce. Be sure to stir this mixture to prevent lumps.
Serve:
Place you favorite part of the roast chicken on your plate, add the roasted vegetables along with some wild rice and a glass of wine.
Enjoy!
