Comfort Food: Simple Roasted Chicken

Comfort Foods: Roasted Chicken

There are many things to love about the way the French cook. They have a way of making the simplest foods absolutely delicious. Sometimes that takes a bit of effort—with complicated sauces or cooking techniques that make the end result well worth it—but often the recipes are beautifully uncomplicated and yield amazing results!

One of the simplest, and most delicious, recipes I learned while studying French cooking and eating my way through France as a college student was roasted chicken. With a few simple ingredients—butter, lots of garlic, a few herbs, salt and pepper—a lovely main course is ready in about an hour. The trick is browning the bird on the stove on all sides first before roasting in the oven, to assure that you will have a crispy, golden skin on the outside with moist, delicious meat on the inside. Serve with mashed potatoes or rice and your favorite vegetable, and you’ll have a great comfort food meal….

Roasted Chicken

1 3 lb. chicken (I prefer kosher chicken)
10 tablespoons (1 stick plus two tablespoons butter)
2-3 tablespoons oil.
3 heads of garlic, with cloves separated but not peeled
8-10 sprigs of fresh thyme, or 5 sprigs fresh rosemary
sea salt and cracked pepper.
1 cup chicken stock

Preheat oven to 425 F. Rinse chicken and pat it dry. Cut up 1 stick butter, and add to a bowl with garlic cloves and herbs. Form into a ball and insert into the cavity of the bird. Truss the chicken closed with twine. Salt and pepper the skin. In a roasting pan or dutch oven, heat the remaining butter and oil over high heat. Brown the chicken on all sides, turning every 5 minutes to brown the skin. Once browned, place the chicken, breast side up, into the oven and roast, basting every 5-10 minutes for about 45 minutes or until a meat thermometer inserted into the thigh reaches 140 degrees. Remove from oven and let sit 10 minutes before carving. Drain off most of the fat in the pan, and return to medium heat adding 1 chicken stock to deglaze the pan. Let the stock reduce by half, and serve alongside the chicken.