Slow Food on a Sunday: Roasted Chicken with Pan Gravy

My mom has all manner of baked goods that I claim as hers. Whoopie pies, gingerbread cookies, and those apple free-form tarts she can whip up with her eyes closed. My dad? Well, the man can make a spaghetti and meatballs that rivals even the snootiest Italian joint. He also has those cube steaks with smoky green chiles and smooth melted cheese.

I associate those meals and foods with my parents. I make them these days as a way to connect and sort of  "live in" a memory. But the great thing about growing up is that you get to start claiming your own meals. It's not that I never ate roasted chicken growing up, it's just that I don't remember them. It wasn't their "signature" that I now associate them with. I know my mom now makes a roasted chicken for my grandparents when she's in Vermont visiting, but it's not one of the dishes I grew up with.

So a couple months back, I decided to make the roast chicken dinner mine. And I had no idea how to cook a damn chicken, but I stubbornly maintained my position and went through three rounds of various levels of "suck" before arriving at my method.

Rotisserie chickens run about $9 these days in the great AK. Isn't that ridiculous? Let alone the fact that they were probably pulled from the roaster at 11 a.m. and I don't swing by the incubator to pick one up until 5:30 p.m. That's just sort of gross, isn't it?

When you head back to the meat department of your average grocery store in Alaska, you can find a decent sized roaster chicken for under $5. No, seriously. Half the price of that chicken jerky monstrosity they sell next to the 18-hour old potato salad.

What a pretty, pretty bird!

I'll be honest, in an effort to create my own roast chicken method (because it's not really about measurements, it's more about just doing) I scoured the internet. I made friends with all manner of Food Network You Tube channels. I argued with Ina Garten and must have called Tyler Florence all manner of names when he put bacon in the equation.

My first chicken was cooked through, but had pale, anemic skin that fell off anyway because I cut into the bird two and a half seconds after I took it out of the oven. (Big no-no.)

On my second attempt, I paid close attention to the skin and tried to get that amazing buttery brown crispy awesomeness all at the expense of making sure the meat was cooked thoroughly. (Gross. Just gross.) I let the early browning of the skin make me jumpy and when the skin started to burn just a bit, I panicked and pulled the whole bird out. Way. Too. Early. Nothing kills your beautiful chicken skin like two minutes in the microwave to un-pink the breast meat. But, nothing kills your family's enthusiasm to come to the dinner table like a bout of bacterial stomach trauma. Choices....choices.

I borrowed a few "turkey" techniques I picked up a couple weeks ago when we hosted the Gracie Barra MMA Team for an early team Thanksgiving...namely the butter/herb/skin combo and the art of the tin foil tent.

On to the chicken...

Sunday Roast Chicken

Ingredients:
Roaster chicken (all manner of neck, gizzards and other such freaky stuff removed...a great job for your squeamish 7 year old if you're feeling prankster-ish)
1 stick of butter, softened
Greek seasoning (I get mine from Summit Spice and Tea, but you can jam together your own combo of parsley, marjoram, Greek oregano, and rosemary based on what you have on hand)
Salt
Pepper
1/2 of a medium onion, rough chopped
6 cloves of garlic, rough chopped
Lemon, halved and sliced into chunks (peel on, though I lost about a quarter of my lemon to said 7-year old as a reparation fee for making him grab the chicken neck thingy. I'm not really sure he'll ever get over that experience.)
White wine or water
2 cups of chicken stock

Directions:

Heat your oven to 425 degrees while you wrestle with your chicken. (Careful, they're ruthless about slipping out of your hands toward the garbage disposal.)

There's no such thing as too much butter...

Make yourself an herb butter by combining your softened butter, about 3 or 4 teaspoons of your seasoning, some salt and pepper. Additionally, make a small dish of salt and pepper and a little more of your seasoning and set aside.

Sprinkle some of that salt/pepper/seasoning combo inside the cavity of your washed and thoroughly dried bird and then stuff it full of the lemons and onions and garlic.

Take your chicken camping!

At this point,  I use my hand to separate the skin from the breast meat and make room for a butter rub down. It's kind of awkward at first and I feel like I'm violating this dead animal somehow, but it really makes a difference when you try to push your butter mixture beneath the skin and smooth down. So go ahead and push that herb butter beneath the skin and spread it as far down along the breast meat as you can. Get good and messy and quit being so girly about your dirty hands underneath some chicken skin. Next, smooth the butter all over the chicken. Yes, a big buttery rub down for the little guy before he goes into the oven. He'll thank you for it.

If you don't know how to truss your chicken, it's basically applying an Americana (yes, shameless jiu jitsu plug here) to the little wings and bending them back onto the bird. From there, tie the drumsticks together with kitchen twine or even some natural looking yarn you might have on hand. (Hey, at least it was white yarn and not lavender. Judge me not, dear reader!) Sprinkle salt and pepper all over the outer skin one last time and wish him well. He's got a long road ahead of him.

Get your roasting pan ready and add wine or water to the bottom of it to help the drippings from burning. (This is pretty important and I'll tell you why a little later.)

Birdie goes on to the roasting pan breast side down for 15 minutes in a 425 degree oven. At the 15 minute mark, pull your bird out, lower the oven to 325, and flip the bird using tongs or kitchen towels or an uncoordinated combination of both. (Guilty.)

Pitch a tent. (Or a fit if you choose to ignore me.)

This is the point in the process where we learn from my mistakes! Make a cute little tent (a folded piece of aluminum foil) for your chicken. No, seriously. It slows the breast meat from cooking/browning too quickly and thus forcing your hand with either burned skin or microwaved chicken. Trust me. Tent the little bugger.

Back into the hot he goes with his cute little tin foil hat for at least an hour. My bird took about 1 hour and 15 minutes. The thermometer in the breast should read 160 when you pull it out.

"It had to be roux..."

Learn from yet another of my mistakes, friends, and don't hack into your chicken right away. You know what happens if you do? You unleash hell in the form of chicken juices everywhere on your counter and floor. Like a veritable chicken dam bursts and sends all the moisture that's supposed to get reabsorbed into the meat all over the place. It's not pretty. Don't rush the resting time.

All aboard the gravy train!

While the chicken rests, grab about a half cup of the chicken fat from the drippings and throw it in a sauce pan. Toss in about four tablespoons of flour and heat over medium flame. Don't rush this part. Please, please, please don't rush this part or you make the mistake I did last night and you end up with beautiful gravy that has the slightest hint of smoky flour. (Sigh.)

I warned you earlier about some white wine or at least a little water  in your roasting pan and burned drippings is what you're trying to avoid. Burned drippings + too high heat while making the roux = smoke flavor city and not in the good "mesquite barbecue" sort of way. And trust me...I'm a Texan. I know good smoke flavor when I sees it!

As the roux darkens and thickens, take your chicken stock and slowly add it as you constantly stir. Constantly. Lumpy gravy is so old fashioned and unnecessary! You have to find your own perfect consistency here and it's all a fine balance of adding stock and reducing until you get there.

One final word of advice: do not attempt
to balance a heavy roaster against your
cardigan while cleaning the kitchen.
Chicken grease stains are almost guaranteed!

By now, your chicken's ready to be hacked apart. There are plenty of good resources on You Tube to show you just how to carve a bird and I had to watch the one from Cook's Illustrated about fifteen times before I got it right and didn't just hack the drumstick off like some crazy cavewoman. It's a great thing to know.

Easy right? Be warned, though, recovering from a meal like this is no easy feat. You're so busy with timetables and moving your food to the table that when you finally pick your head up and start clearing dishes, you might have a heart attack when you see the sorry state your kitchen is in. At least that's the case in my house. Lucky for me, P stopped off at the store and got my favorite Gnarly Head Old Vine Zin...which made everything better. Even clean up duty!

Happy eating!