Saturday, September 18, 2010

Wanton Chicken


I was vindicated today to find that Julia Child’s recipe for basic roasted chicken is almost the same as the one I’ve been using. Simple. Delicious. Humble. I can’t imagine anything better than the smell of a chicken stuffed with lemons, rosemary, thyme et al roasting away. Perhaps I can’t imagine it because right now that’s all I smell.

JC and I differ on one element. She trusses her chicken, tying the legs together to make for a better presentation. She’s quite adamant that to leave the legs swinging free is wrong. She makes some noise about overcooked drumsticks but her main concern seems to be keeping up appearance. Actually, the word she uses is “wanton”…. Leaving the legs splayed “gives the chicken a rather wanton look,” JC says in her lovely cookbook co-written with Jacques Pepin. I love that that’s the word she chooses. I usually can’t be bothered to dig out my cooking twine. So wanton chicken it is.

I’ll admit that roasting a chicken is an odd activity for a lazy, gorgeous Saturday when lunch is past and it’s not quite dinner time. But this was a: when the oven was free in my cook crowded home today, sandwiched between the farmer’s market inspired breakfast cooked by one housemate and the zucchini cake baking frenzy of another who is valiantly trying to tame our CSA share. And b: if I didn’t make this chicken today it was going to be a lost cause.

Hence roast chicken at 3pm.

My approach to roast chicken is simple. Having never owned the proper v-shaped roasting rack I strew the bottom of the roasting pan with onions, potatoes, carrots, celery, leeks: whatever’s in the house and will lift the chicken off the bottom of the pan. Rub the bird’s skin with butter or olive oil, s&p, put some in the cavity as well. (JC calls this a “generous butter massage,” wanton indeed!). Cut a couple lemons (or a mix of lemon and orange if there are oranges to be had) into thick slices. Squeeze the lemons over the chicken and stuff the cavity with them and fresh herbs. We always have rosemary and thyme so those tend to be my preference. Whatever lemons don’t fit in the cavity I toss into the bottom of the pan. Roast at 425 for 15 minutes, then turn the oven down to 350 for somewhere in the neighborhood of an hour.

That’s it. It makes for very simple, delicious chicken. With some yummy roasted veggies in the bottom that basically basted in butter and chicken fat…. Really what’s not to like. Although the “veggie rack” I use might not be universally appealing. They are very mushy and very intensely flavored and can end up on the salty side as basting washes some of the salt from the skin into the pan. I love it. But it might not be for everyone.

And I have to say that JC’s system for testing chicken’s “doneness” is preferable to my mind. If I cooked a chicken until the meat thermometer said it was done it’d be sawdust. I swear that’s why chicken has such a bad rap. Stuffing the cavity with citrus does slow the cooking time if, like me, you’re over exuberant about citrus. But I just allow for extra cooking time—a necessity with 1660 Hobart’s ghetto oven anyway. Julia says the chicken’s done when the juices run clear and the legs move easily in their socket.

Bon appétit!

2 comments:

  1. 4 years ago, I spent $200 on a rather disastrous thanksgiving. It was like putting my kitchen through a marathon that it had never trained for. I diligently made enough food for 20 people and luckily over 2 people attended but unfortunately, less than 4. The turkey was dry; almost everything else was cold. The saving grace was the gravy, still the best gravy I've ever had. It was the kind of rich, deep, unbelievable flavor that made me want to buy a turkey, make the gravy and throw the turkey away, untasted. So, long story short, what are the gravy options with this wonderful sounding meal?

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  2. not gravy so much as a deglazing sauce. pull out the chicken, toss other solids or use as you will. scrape up the bits to make a nice sauce with white wine/vermouth, shallots, butter, stock if you think it's necessary. i'm not a huge gravy fan myself. for years i didn' even like turkey. then i discovered herb butter shoved in between the skin of a turkey (or chicken for that matter) vastly improved the dry turkey of childhood memories. good stuff that butter.

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