This recipe was my entry into roasting poultry. It’s super easy, with not a ton of ingredients or prep. An excellent gateway to bigger things, with lemons, or maybe even a turkey!
Roast Chicken
Ingredients
- 3 lb roasting chicken
- 2 sprigs thyme
- 2 sprigs rosemary
- 2 cloved garlic, peeled
- 2 Tbsp butter, softened
- 1 tsp paprika
- Kosher Salt
- 1 medium onion, peeled and quartered
Tools
- Roasting pan and rack
- 100% cotton kitchen twine
Directions
- Preheat oven to 400° F. Rinse the chicken, inside and out, and pat dry with paper towels. Gather thyme and rosemary, and tie with kitchen twine.
- Rub chicken all over with butter, covering all surface area. Sprinkle with paprika, and with a generous amount of salt. Place the herbs and the garlic cloves inside the chicken cavity.
- Put onion quarters in roasting pan, and then place the chicken on top.
- Put rack in the center of the oven, and roast for 15 minutes.
- Turn oven down to 350° F, and roast for 75 to 90 minutes, or until an instant read thermometer reads 170° F when inserted into the thickest part of the thigh.
- Remove chicken from rack, and let rest.
Roasting is not something I’m typically comfortable with. Especially birds. Pot roast, using a slow cooker, is pretty darn easy (though I have yet to find a recipe I like).
But birds – well, usually I hear “roast turkey” and immediately think of Thanksgiving, and how much fuss it takes to get that dinner on the table. Second to that is the fact that in a house of 2, making a turkey doesn’t really make a lot of sense.
This past Thanksgiving, due to work travel, MM and I stayed home, and I thought it would be nice to have some kind of turkey. So I scoured through Pinterest, and FoodNetwork.com, trying to find something fairly easy that wouldn’t leave us with 10 days worth of leftovers. I found a recipe (another page, another time), and it worked really, really well.
So, why not chicken?
This recipe was found in a magazine, tried a couple times, and I love it. It’s really, really easy, and makes the house smell good during it’s roasting time.
I also just found the chef’s website, and located the online version of the recipe, though it’s a bit different than the magazine version. The magazine version is the one I’ve based mine on below.
I ask that you forgive the pictures – I’m still working out the best way to take them, and as you may have noticed, I’m way too interested in getting food on my plate to eat than I am setting it up for a pretty picture. 🙂
Enjoy!