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The Tastiest Roast Chicken with Onion and Lemon Herb Gravy

Posted on | December 13, 2008 | 6 Comments

Here’s the link to the Roast Chicken recipe page on Foodista:

As promised, here is the result of the deboned whole chicken.

I find few things more comforting than a properly roasted chicken. They’re quite affordable and ready cooked at most grocery stores, but cooking one at home is a skill you should learn to master.

Recently, I’ve found that I achieve far better results by cutting up the whole roaster into separate pieces. For this version of Recipe Play, I butterflied the breasts and removed the breast bone from within, rather than separating the breasts from the bone during the deboning process. It cooked evenly and was quite easy to carve. I found that it also preserved the integrity of the skin.

But how to prep it? I’ve tried so many different approaches to seasoning and prepping chickens. This worked the best. The secret ingredient here: one packet of powdered ranch dressing mix. Yep, you read that correctly, Ranch…Dressing…Mix.

Now, if you’re worried about the contents of a spice pack such as this, you can replicate it using the parsley, onion and garlic powder below…plus a decent amount of salt.

And, here is a recipe to make your own mix – Ranch Dressing Mix

I used the following:

• The rind of one whole lemon, grated with a box grater
• The juice of the same lemon, squeezed out over the chicken
• Dry parsley (if you’re not using the spice mix)
• Dry marjoram
• Onion powder (if you’re not using the spice mix)
• Garlic powder (if you’re not using the spice mix)
• Salt (go ahead, be generous with your use)
• Pepper
• Lemon herb butter (recipe coming soon, but basically butter, fresh parsley, a pinch of the lemon rind, a squeeze of lemon juice and garlic powder)
• Two onions cut up into pieces

Arrange the roaster on a cookie sheet with foil. Cover the pieces with the lemon juice. Massage the herb butter into the skin and onto the flesh. Combine spices in a bowl and cover liberally (even under the skin, being careful not to tear it too much. Just to be thorough, go back over all the pieces with cracked pepper and sea salt. Cover and throw it in the fridge for about an hour.

Remove from the fridge and let stand at room temperate. Prepare your roasting pan by adding a small glug of olive oil and rubbing it around the surface with your hands. Turn the oven to between 400-425 to preheat and add the pan. By the time the oven is up to temp, the pan should be super hot.

Remove the pan and add the chicken pieces skin side down. Add the onion pieces around the chicken and the quartered pieces of squeezed lemon. You’re going to cook the chicken skin side down only (this method produced the crispiest chicken skin I’ve ever achieved) for about 40 minutes depending on the temp of your oven. Check the temp at around 35 minutes. It should be about 160 degrees when taken from the flesh – not the bone. When it reaches this temp, pull the roaster out of the oven, and turn the pieces flesh-side down. Let sit in the pan for about 5-10 minutes and then remove pieces to a cutting board. Tent with foil and let rest for 10 minutes or so (the chicken will continue to cook, but letting it rest allows the juices to redistribute into the meat).

While the chicken is resting, add cooked onions and lemon pieces from the pan, a can of chicken stock (about 8 oz. of fresh stock if you have it) and the juices from the roasting pan. Blend until it becomes smooth, then strain (you can actually serve it as is if you’d like, for a more rustic approach). Serve gravy in a gravy boat to allow your guests, friends, family to add the sauce if they’d like. The chicken really doesn’t need it, but it is tasty.

Serve with sauteed broccoli, green salad and rice. For this particular spice mix, a dry french chardonnay would pair nicely.

Or, you can merely eat the chicken as you carve it, as I am want to do.

More later

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