Simple Roast Chicken

The trussed bird cooked up nicely, although some felt that the trussing needlessly limits the amount of skin that is crisped through roasting at a high heat. Valid point, but the fact that the breast meat is almost as moist as the dark meat makes it seem worthwhile.  We shall have to have a chicken cook-off, one trussed and one not, to decide which method to use in the future.  Meantime, this was delish!

This recipe from Epicurious is by Thomas Keller, often called the best chef in America. I followed some reviewer’s suggestions and slashed the legs so they would cook faster. A key technique is to dry the chicken really well so the skin crisps up rather than steaming. It is probably better to dry it and put it on the roasting pan (I use a broiler pan) in the ‘fridge so that it continues to dry for a few hours before cooking; however, I usually forget about this suggestion. I also use the convection feature on my oven and cover the bottom of the broiler pan with foil. This eliminates the copious amounts of smoke in the kitchen that can ensue from the hot fat dripping onto the pan. For some reason, the foil works. (I tried other reviewer suggestions of putting a piece of bread under the rack or roasting the chicken on a bed of onions, but both of those seemed to result in a less-crispy chicken.)

This made a good meal with roasted sweet potatoes (toss cubes in olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper and roast at 450 until tender and beginning to brown) and broccoli, cooked in small amount of salted water until bright green and then tossed over high heat with olive oil, garlic and salt and pepper, plus a dash of red pepper flakes).

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