Thanks to Anne.
Herb-Roasted Chicken
Ingredients:
1 whole chicken
1 lemon or lime
1 onion
Baby potatoes (smallest available)
Olive oil (extra-virgin)
Garlic (as much or as little as one likes)
Fresh basil
Fresh thyme
Dried rosemary
Salt and pepper
Preheat the oven to 375 F/190 C.
Instructions:
Approx. 3 tblspoons extra-virgin olive oil
1-3 cloves garlic, minced or crushed (depending on preference)
1 tblspoon fresh thyme (minus stems)
3 tblspoons rough-chopped fresh basil (minus stems)
1 teaspoon dried rosemary
(Other spices to taste - bay, oregano, etc. I like oregano with the chicken and bay with the potatoes.)
1-3 tblspoons lemon or lime juice, depending on preference. Keep the squeezed lemon or lime sections, and at least one unsqueezed section.
salt and pepper to taste
Carefully separate the chicken's skin from the meat of its breast, thighs, and if possible, back. (This can be a little fatty and sometimes separates, sometimes doesn't.) Halve the potatoes; chop up the onion, and toss them in a little of the olive oil mixture. Rub the olive oil mixture into the chicken's flesh, being sure to get lots of the garlic and basil under the skin. Rub the rest onto the skin and into the chicken's cavity. If there's any lemon or lime left, squeeze it onto the chicken. Stuff the cavity with at least a quarter of the lemon or lime, some onion, and as many potato halves as will fit. Put the rest of the potatoes and onion in a casserole dish. Place the chicken in a roasting dish and roast for 1.5 or more hours (depending on size; a 1.5 kg chicken will take between 1.5 and 2 hours to roast fully). Baste regularly. Add the casserole dish with the potatoes and onion when you have between 1.5 and 2 hours of roasting-time left; even tiny potatoes take a long time to cook all the way through. Be sure to stir the potatoes and onions occasionally.
Another thing to note: if you like your chicken roasted so that it's quite moist and nearly falling off the bone, drop the oven's temp by 10-15 degrees and increase the cooking time accordingly. If you don't have a meat-thermometer, cut the chicken's flesh to see if the juices run clear, to ensure that the chicken's fully cooked.
Let the chicken sit for 10-15 minutes after you take it out of the oven. This allows the juice to settle in the chicken's flesh, rather than run out of it when you serve it, and will make for a moister chicken.
If you don't want to bother with the potatoes, stuff and serve the chicken with onion only, or onions and carrots, and make rice on the side.
We drank a Chateau Neuf-du-Pape with the chicken, but a white Bordeaux like Chateau de l'Hoste is delicious with chicken. This recipe also works well for Cornish game hen, though a lot less fits inside a game hen's cavity than a chicken's!
I like to use lime juice instead of lemon for a little extra zing. Crushed, dried red peppers and lime juice make the fowl taste a little more southwestern. If possible, I like to crush all the dried herbs together with a mortar and pestle before adding them to the olive oil.
[It's delicious]
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