The inspiration for this chicken dish came from Brad Leone in the July 2020 issue of Bon Appétit magazine. You will need to plan ahead if you want to make this, as the chicken spends 8 hours in the fridge, absorbing a dry rub of black and pink peppercorns. I cut the backbone out of the chicken (Spatchcock is the technical term for this) using poultry shears, so that it would lay flat and roast faster. This is something you can ask the butcher to do, if you’re squeamish about handling raw chicken.
I have never cooked with pink peppercorns before and I was shocked at how much they added to the flavour of the chicken. They are more floral than spicy and they add a delicate, fruity note. The dry brining also gives the skin a chance to air dry, resulting in the crispiest skin after roasting.
The original recipe was done on the BBQ, but I roasted mine in the oven. Before putting the chicken in the roasting pan, I made a bed of peeled halved shallots and lemon wedges to keep the chicken off the bottom of the roasting pan, so that it would roast and not steam in its own juices. Plus, they helped to flavour the chicken.
While the chicken is roasting, I prepared a glaze to be brushed on the chicken during the last 15 minutes of oven time. The glaze is perfectly balanced in terms of flavour. Honey and maple syrup add sweetness , jalapeño peppers add heat, pink peppercorns add a floral note and champagne vinegar adds acidity.
I served it with some wedge roasted potatoes and a green salad. Even though we are just 2 at home now, I still love to make a whole roasted chicken. it’s great to have leftovers the next day.
There is something about a chicken roasting in the oven that makes me feel like everything’s going to be ok. Such a simple, humble dish has an amazing power to reassure and comfort. And we could all use a little comfort right now.
This roast chicken is comfort food with a zesty attitude. The recipe comes from Adeena Sussman‘s new cookbook, Sababa. Adeena is a Tel Aviv based food writer and recipe developer. Sababa celebrates the fresh and sunny flavours and vibrant spices of Israel. It’s my new favourite way to make roast chicken. If you have never roasted an entire chicken, nothing could be simpler. Even though we are just 2 at home now, I roast a whole chicken at least once a week. Leftovers the next day are a gift!
Spices figure prominently in this dish. Shallots and red potato wedges get a coating of olive oil and sumac. If you have never used ground sumac, you are missing out. Sumac is a bush that grows in the Middle East. The bright red berries are harvested, dried and ground into a coarse powder with a tangy lemony flavour. It’s much less astringent than lemon juice and adds a light pop of tartness. It’s widely available in Middle Eastern stores and if you’re in Canada, Bulk Barn carries it.
The second spice that makes an appearance is za’atar, which is actually a spice mixture. Za’atar gets mixed with lemon zest and olive oil and massaged into the chicken skin. I love this dish because you roast the chicken and the veggies all in one pan. The fat from the chicken coats the potatoes and the ones at the edge get super crispy.
Be patient and let the chicken rest for at least 10 minutes once it’s done before you try to carve it. Served with a green salad, you have a complete meal.
This summer, my daughter asked me how to roast a whole chicken. It dawned on me, that there is a whole generation of young adults out there who have no idea how to do this. Now, in her defence, she was a vegetarian up until a few years ago, so she never really paid attention to meat cookery when she was growing up.
That conversation was the impetus for this post. I gathered paper, pencil, measuring cups, spoons and a scale so that I could accurately record, exactly what I do. Since I roast chickens so frequently, I don’t normally measure. I just do it on autopilot.
Start with a 3 1/2 -4 pound chicken. If it is at all possible, buy a kosher chicken, as the salt added during the koshering process makes the meat juicier and more flavourful. Slice a lemon in half and stuff it inside the cavity of the bird. Tie up the legs with some kitchen twine. That will help the chicken roast more evenly. Then, shower that bird with a mix of kosher salt, pepper and paprika. Sometimes I used smoked paprika. Let the chicken sit on the counter while you get everything else ready.
Since you’re turning on the oven, you may as well roast some veggies with the chicken. I used shallots, carrots and mini potatoes. Feel free to use whatever you like. Squash, leeks, sweet potatoes and parsnips would all be good ideas. A few sprigs of thyme and rosemary are a winning flavour addition. A whole head of garlic, halved is also an option, if that’s how you roll. If you plan to use potatoes, boil them first, for about 15 minutes, just until they begin to get tender. Then gently break the skin and flatten slightly with a fork or potato masher. This give you more potato surface area to get crispy. If you have a 12- inch cast iron frying pan, or any enamel cast iron roasting pan (ie: Le Creuset) their hear retention properties make them the perfect roasting vessel. While you’re getting everything ready, place the empty roasting pan or skillet into the oven while you are preheating it.
Carefully place chicken into hot pan and surround it with veggies,. Drizzle it all with olive oil. Roast it for about 60-65 minutes, until an instant read thermometer, inserted into the thickest part of the thigh (careful not to touch bone) registers 165°F.
The most important instruction I will give you is to let the chicken rest for 20 minutes before serving. This will give you time to turn the pan juices into a little sauce if you want. Complete instructions for doing this are in the recipe link.
Yes, I admit it’s rather bold of me to suggest that you turn on the oven during this hellish heatwave, but stick with me here, and hopefully I’ll succeed in convincing you to do just that. It goes without saying that if you’re going to roast a chicken in the middle of July, it better be exceptional. This one comes from the master of Mid-East cuisine, Yotam Ottolenghi. Need I say more? This recipe was featured in the August 2014 issue of Bon Appetit magazine.
Start with a heap of thinly sliced red onions. You could roast a whole roast chicken or chicken pieces, but I like to spatchcock the chicken for a more impressive presentation. Basically this just means removing the backbone to flatten the chicken for quicker cooking. You could ask the butcher to do it, or simply use kitchen shears and do it yourself. I have included detailed instructions in the recipe.
Prepare a marinade of garlic, sumac, allspice, cinnamon, salt, pepper and olive oil and mix withsliced onions and lemons . Give the chicken at least a two hours to soak up all the flavour.After marinating, generously coat the chicken with za’atar, transfer to a roasting pan and arrange some of the onions and lemons on top of the chicken so that they will get gloriously brown. While the chicken is roasting, prepare the green tahini sauce. Have you noticed that tahini seems to be popping up everywhere lately? It’s the new darling of the culinary world, and for good reason. It is really quite versatile. Molly made a tahini sheet cake with cream cheese frosting. Ottolenghi made tahini and halvah brownies. If you need more inspiration, check out these amazing desserts.
Parsley for verdant freshness and vibrant colour, lemon for it’s pucker, and garlic for it’s punch, all make good playmates for tahini.Epicurious.com suggested adding some toasted pita to this recipe. Once the chicken is cooked, remove it, along with the onions and lemons to a baking sheet. Toss some toasted pita bread in all those delicious pan juices. Place the chicken, lemons and onions back on top of the pita in the roasting pan and broil it until the skin gets crispy brown. Heap it onto a serving platter, top with toasted pine nuts and serve the sauce on the side.
There has been quite a bit of buzz (well in the culinary world at least), about New York Times food columnist Melissa Clark’s new cookbook, Cook This Now. My kitchen shelves are bulging with cookbooks and I resolved not to buy anymore, but I did order one to give as a gift to my sister. When it arrived, of course I had to look through it. Melissa organizes the book by month, which ordinarily irritates me. My husband can provide anyone interested with the entire litany of little things that irritate me, but let’s keep it pleasant and not go there today. As I was saying, ordinarily, I prefer when cookbooks are organized by traditional categories (ie: appetizers, breads, chicken etc…) However, Melissa had me hooked from the very first January recipe, “White Bean Stew with Rosemary, Garlic and Farro.” She had me at farro!
So of course, I kept the cookbook for myself and ordered another one for my sister, plus a bonus book (Momofuko’s Milk Bar) as my penalty for being late. Bo, if you’re reading this, now you know why your gift was late.
And rebel that am, I skipped right past the first 2 January recipes and boldly tackled the 3rd one first! Full disclosure here, I’m really not that much of a rebel, I just happened to have a whole chicken defrosting in the fridge.
Melissa likes to play a game when she looks through food magazines. She doesn’t read the recipes. Instead, she looks at the photos and imagines what she thinks the recipe should be. She says that her track record is pretty good at guessing accurately, but sometimes she’s way off base. And that’s how the recipe for crisp Roasted Chicken with Chickpeas, Lemons and Carrots was born. Melissa explains:
“The photo was of a roasted chicken on a bed of chickpeas and what I thought were tiny cubes of carrot. I could taste the dish in my head. The chickpeas were crunchy and salty next to the melting, sweet carrots and everything was suffused with chicken fat from the roasting bird.
In fact, the carrots turned out to be bits of orange bell pepper (definitely not in season in January in New York) and the chickpeas were added to the pan during the last few minutes of cooking so they would stay moist and soft, without the time to absorb much in the way of chicken essence. I’m sure it was a perfectly good dish. But I liked my own idea better.”
Her description was very persuasive. I set to work right away. Lemons are sliced into little wedges and then mixed with chickpeas and garam masala, an Indian spice blend. I happened to have rainbow carrots and some parsnips, so they got thrown into the pan as well.
More garam masala is rubbed all over the chicken and then the chicken is seasoned with salt and pepper and then stuffed with more lemon and some fresh thyme. Melissa suggests rubbing the chicken with softened butter, but I left this step out as I didn’t want the extra fat. The stuffed chicken is placed on a rack, above the carrots and parsnips and roasted in a 400° F oven for 30 minutes.
After 30 minutes, the chickpea-lemon mixture is added to the bottom of the pan and the chicken gets about another hour in the oven. While it was roasting I prepared the gremolata garnish.
This dish is pure roast chicken goodness! Moist and succulent and intensely flavourful.The carrots and parsnips turned dark brown and had a wonderful sweet caramelized flavour. The chickpeas turned all crispy from roasting in the chicken juices. The only part of the dish we didn’t love was the roasted lemons. Melissa says they are edible, but we found them to be too bitter. Next time, and there will be a next time very soon, I will add only the zest of the lemons to the chickpeas.
