Roast Chicken


 

CaseT

TVWBB Platinum Member
Disclaimer I made this in a cast iron skillet, but it can also be made in a dutch oven, and we do when camping. You can also do this in a high temp smoker. When camping we set the oven up sop we can get it as close to 425° as possible. All that is required for this recipe is a whole chicken, 4 nice russet potatoes (8 Yukon can be used) olive oil and spices.

As I do with all birds that I cook I rubbed the bird down with a mixture of kosher salt and baking powder (2 tablespoons salt 1 teaspoon BP) and placed the bird on a rack and into the fridge overnight to air dry.

Preheat Dutch oven to 425°. If using this in a conventional oven you need to preheat the dutch oven of skillet too.

Slice pototoes into 1/4" thick rounds. I like to soak the slices in cold water for at least an hour, changing the water at least once. Drain and dry potato slices.
In a bowl combine potato slices with 1-2 tablespoons of olive oil. Season with what ever you like. I used thyme, rosemary, salt & pepper. Mix well to get seasoning and oil on all slices.

Remove bird from fridge. Apply small amount of olive oil to bird. Season, again with whatever you like. I used SPOG plus rosemary and thyme. You can season between the skin and meat if you like. You can also add onion celery, etc to the cavity (I did not). If you like to use compound butter you can do that just omit the oil on the skin.

I very rarely truss a bird but for roasting I do.

Once the oven and pan (or dutch oven) have heated up, add one tablespoon of oil. Carefully place potato slices into the pan arrange to the sides leaving the center clear. Carefully place the chicken in the center of the skillet or dutch oven.

if cooking in an oven remove when breast reads 155°-160° . Let rest in dutch oven or skillet for at least 30 minutes. The internal temp will come up.

My taters weren't as brown as I like them so I put them back in with the oven at 475° to crisp them up.

The thighs, carcass, wings and drumsticks will be turned into a chicken stock. We ate the breasts.

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Love that idea with the taters and will be stealing it for my next whole bird cook. Sadly, I have the bird in the freezer now, but no 'taters in the house. It'll have to wait until we are desperate for a grocery run. This will also give me a good excuse to use my long neglected mandolin.

Do you always leave the skin on when making stock? I usually discard it - not because I read to do that, but I figured it's just adding more fat that I ultimately don't want in there.
 
Love that idea with the taters and will be stealing it for my next whole bird cook. Sadly, I have the bird in the freezer now, but no 'taters in the house. It'll have to wait until we are desperate for a grocery run.

This will also give me a good excuse to use my long neglected mandolin.

Jim, That's exactly why I did this cook. The other day as I was taking stock in the pantry I ran across the mandolin. I had a hard time finding a whole chicken. Store had two. I bought both one for me one for my mom. Drumsticks, you can buy hundreds of those, but here that's it for chicken. Potatoes (onions too) were hit hard several weeks ago, but now they are well stocked in our stores again.
 
The chicken looks really good...but I would've never had the willpower to sacrifice the thighs to the stock pot!

Hard times require hard decisions! There haven't been any thighs in the stores here, or whole chickens. Drumsticks up the wazoo. I like drumsticks. non of its cheap. paid $5.00/pound for this bird. Last batch of drummies was $3.99/pound, normally pay $0.89-$0.99/pound.
 

 

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