Roast Chicken with Potatoes, Onions, and Garlic

Locale: USA []

Source: Ruth Reichl, Garlic and Sapphires [p. 230] [link]

Serves: 4

Ingredients

  • 1 chicken, about 3.5 lbs
  • 1 lemon
  • olive oil
  • 3 or 4 smallish Yukon Gold potatoes, each peeled and cut into 8 pieces
  • 1 large onion, cut into 6 pieces
  • 3 or 4 cloves garlic, unpeeled
  • salt and pepper

Steps

  1. Preheat oven to 400F.

  2. Wash chicken and pat dry. Remove and reserve extra fat. Very gently run your fingers between the breast and skin from the breast on both sides. Being careful ot to puncture the skin, place the excess fat beneath the skin (the chicken will then baste itself). Puncture the lemon a few times with a fork, and place inside the chicken.

  3. Pour enough olive oil into a roasting pan to make a thin film over the bottom. Toss potatoes, onion, and garlic into the pan until covered with olive oil. If you have a rack, put chicken on it, breast side up, and place in roasting pan; if not, just set chicken in pan. Pour a little olive oil over chicken. Salt and pepper everything.

  4. Roast about 1 hour, until an instant-read thermometer inserted into a thigh reads 170F. Remove pan from oven and let chicken rest for 10 minutes. Carve the chicken into serving pieces, surround them with potatoes, onions, and garlic, and squeeze the lemon over the top.

Notes

  1. Reichl writes: "Nothing is easier than roasting a chicken. As in most cooking, it's all about the shopping." She recommends a "good farm-raised chicken." I've been buying something called a Smart Chicken, which is packaged with air around it. It works well here.