French Fridays with Dorie: Roast Chicken for Les Paresseux

"You're not a mean person.
You're not a mean person.
God put this meat on the Earth for you to eat. {sparingly ;) }
It's just a chicken.
Oh! What a cute chicken.
It's dead who cares.
...ew this is kinda gross.
Just salt the dang bird.
Yeah, give it a good rub.
Hum...this is kind of fun."

Do you ever step back and realize you are having a conversation with yourself in the kitchen?. Well, this here is a little monologue for you when I conquered a lame-o goal of handling a raw whole chicken. It took some self-talk but ended up being no big deal.

I really don't know what all the fuss was about? I mean, let's be honest people, chicken breasts can be much, much worse! Think of how slimy and slippery, veiny and fatty... Okay I'll stop. So hip-hip, and whooo-rahh for Becky! I checked off one of my big to-dos of my 2010 Culinary Goals List with this roasted chicken recipe! Check it out, yo!

Isn't he pretty? I may or may not have given this 5 lb organic chicken a name.

If you recall, I joined yet another weekly baking group, French Fridays with Dorie. Each week hundreds of cooks across the globe make the same recipe from Dorie Greenspan's "Around My French Table". We'll do this until we finish in roughly six years. This week the group voted to make Roast Chicken for Les Paresseux. That is roast chicken for lazy people because all you do is stick the bird in and wait 90 minutes.

We've made roast chicken at our house before, but it's usually been my husband. I've been missing out. It's fun, it's simple (even if you confuse the neck hole for the other hole at first) and holy-crap it's delicious. Every time I eat a roasted chicken I curse those blasted over-hormoned-always-end-up-dry chicken breast for hours. I swear that I will never eat them again and then the next week I head on up to the Costco and buy a big nasty bag of frozen ones. (Note to self: remember you like free-range organic chicken breast. Don't let the Costco tempt you with its prices...)

Is it just me or am I chatty tonight?

Back to the point.

This roast chicken was a winner and I will make it again and again.  It was prepped in no time, especially when you enlist your husband to chop up veggies and such...and you we had plenty for leftover for the next day.




In the recipe narrative, Dorie introduces us to a technique where you place a slice of bread or baguette in the center of the pot and then rest the bird on it. So as the bird cooks the bread soaks its juices and then becomes a tasty crisp treat to enjoy! I now call this chicken bread. Boy oh boy is it sinful! Never could I have dreamed such a concoction! I had to have two bites and walk away. I swear it had like 60 grams of fat in it.

For the veggies--each became a treasured niblet, especially the carrots. I just love how mine got charred (i probably had too big of a Dutch oven, but oh well) a bit. You'll get a real treat if a carrot placed next to the garlic head half. Adam loved this too. He was especially impressed with the chicken's moistness and crispiness of the skin. His favorite part was the dark meat-thigh and drumstick. We also made the potato gratin which I'll post about next week. It was a real winner and great combo with the roasted chicken.

Next time, I promise I'll suck it up and keep the liver in to try. Baby steps, right?

Be sure to stop by the French Fridays with Dorie Website to see what the other bloggers thought of this week's recipes. (November is a special month because we can make the recipes in any order.) So you may see pumpkin Gorgonzola flan, potato gratin or a special cake.

Have a great weekend, friends!