ROAST CHICKEN

So I had planned to roast a chicken on the grill for Memorial Day, but, it's a nasty grey cool day here in San Mateo, so we move on to plan b: the oven, which, on a nasty grey cool day, works just as well both for cooking the chicken and for warming up the Eichler.     I don't often roast chickens, but when I do, I drink Dos Equis-no wait, someone else wrote that.   

I don't often roast chickens, but when I do, I try to mix it up a little bit.   This time, I decide to marinate the chicken rather than brine it.   I marinated for exactly 22 hours and 4 minutes, although I would round up to 24.    The marinade went something like this, although to be honest I did not measure:

A few cups of fresh squeezed orange juice
1/2 cup honey
1/4 cup light soy sauce
1 tbsp ponzu
1/4 cup inexpensive balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup rice wine vinegar
A few pours of grade b maple syrup
6 sprigs of fresh rosemary
some plain pomegranate juice
 6 cloves crushed garlic 
black pepper

I actually think there was other stuff but I don't remember what it was.  The point is, you can use whatever you like/have on hand.    I use the soy sauce in lieu of using plain salt.  It doesn't give the chicken an asian flavor, but you could easily go that direction by using lemongrass and ginger instead of rosemary and maple, and swap out the balsamic for more rice wine vinegar.

In the meantime, clean and pat dry a high quality roasting chicken, whatever size you like.  I put the chicken in a gigantic zip lock and add all the marinade ingredients.  Refrigerate overnight.

Remove the chicken from the marinade, pat chicken dry and make sure to wipe out inside of cavity with a dry paper towel. 

I like to roast the chicken in a 9 x 13 pan.  First, heat your oven to 425 (ish).   In the pan spray some olive oil spray or add a little olive oil.   Then add the following:

-lots of celery stalks
-lots of shallots
-an apple or two cut up in to large chunks
-a potato or two, or three, also cut in to large chunks

 I then place the chicken on top of the items above in the pan, tuck the wings under, and stuff the chicken with the following items.  Again, use whatever you like or have, of course that works together.

-1 shallot
-10 cloves of garlic, skin on
-large piece of apple
-a fistful of parsley
-a fistful of tarragon (I would also use fresh thyme if I had any, and you can add more fresh rosemary, but i didn't)
-a large chunk of an orange with skin on.

Now tie it up with string, brush it with some olive oil and melted butter (again, you could add all sorts of fun stuff here like a pumice of herbs under the skin)  and you are good to go!

Roast at 425 for approximately 20 minutes.  Lower heat to 350 and tent the chicken (with aluminum foil-two pieces, attached lengthwise, and made in to a tent-you can google this, it's a piece of cake).

Depending on the weight of your chicken, 15-20 minutes per pound is about right, but the best thing to do is check on it.  If it's 4 lbs, check it after 50 minutes.  If the juice between the top of the leg and the breast runs clear, it's done.     Below you can link to the USDA website which tells you a cooked chicken is cooked when the thermometer reads 165 degrees.

Is it done yet ?

This chicken really doesn't need any sort of gravy, it is good on it's own.  If I were going to do anything I would take some of the juices from the pan, make a quick roux with some flour and butter, add the pan juices, some chopped parsley, and salt and pepper.  Serve with steamed spinach or a green salad and all those delicious potatoes and shallots from the pan.   

Let me say one other thing about this whole chicken thing, I felt like a proud French woman from Nice or Cannes or somewhere fabulous, but without the fantastic outfit and not-fat french woman stunning looks.