Roast Chicken

Once upon a time, I dared myself to eat for $15 a week. I wasn't entirely sure when I decided to try it that it could be done, but it turns out that it's not so hard. The secret? Roast chicken.

A small whole chicken (3-4 pounds, a fryer hen) is ridiculously economical meat. I can get them at my local store for about $4.50. Roasted, they're enough to feed me dinner for three or four days, and they produce really useful byproducts: namely chicken stock and leftover bits of meat that I use for chicken salads. I've already given my chicken noodle soup recipe, and I'm somewhat shocked that I didn't give my roast recipe at that time, but since today I roasted a hen and it turned out beautifully, it's clearly time to remedy that oversight.

A good roast chicken is lovely to behold. Golden brown and juicy, I've always thought it's an almost formal-looking dish: a Thanksgiving turkey in miniature. Roasted properly, it's also lovely to taste, with a perfect moist-but-not-too-moist texture and a delicately herb infused flavour that I find difficult to achieve by any other method. Combine these succulent selling points with the fact that a single roast chicken easily can be stretched into meals for a week (two or three nights of plain chicken and some veggies, two or three nights of chicken noodle soup, two or three nights of hot chicken salad), it's a bird that more cooks should learn to lean on.

This method for roasting was cobbled together from various sources, most memorably the Zuni Cafe Cookbook's famous bird, and Barbara Kafka's Julia Child Cookbook Award-winning method.

Roast Chicken

1 whole chicken (3-4 lbs is perfect, but up to 6 lbs is fine)
Salt (1 tbsp per 4 lbs of bird)
Baking soda (use the same amount of baking soda as you do salt, so if you've got a 4 lb bird, use 1 tbsp of each)
1/2 cup fresh rosemary
1/2 cup fresh thyme

Begin the day before you plan to actually cook the bird. Extract the giblets and neck from the body of the bird (save these in a pot nearby and use them to make stock), and rinse the whole thing thoroughly. Using paper towels, dry the chicken completely both inside and out. Use your fingers to loosen the skin over the breast and thighs. Mix the salt and baking soda together, and rub the mixture evenly over the bird. Sit the salted-and-sodaed bird on a rack and put it back in the fridge to wait until the next day. I know that a lot of cooks aren't big on prep that needs to take place the day before, but let me tell you, this is worth it. It's essential. The salt soaks into the bird and gives it amazing flavour, and the baking soda dries out the skin so you get the coveted crisp, crackly skin that cookbook covers envy. Plus it cuts way down on the prep time for the day you cook the bird.

Once you've refrigerated your chicken, it's time to make stock. Fill a soup pot with water and toss in the giblets and neck. Add a handfull of baby carrots, some of the tough stems of brocolli, the dark green tops of leeks that you never use, etc. Boil this for a few hours, then strain it through cheesecloth and skim the fat off the top. Save the fat as seasoning if you like, but certainly save the stock. You can use it with leftover bits of the chicken meat to make soup.

The next day, begin by preheating your oven to 450F. Remove chicken and rack from the fridge, and turn the chicken over so that the breast is pointed down towards the rack. Using a sharp knife, cut a few slits across the bottom of the chicken (the side currently facing up). This will allow the fat to drain off more effectively, and will help you achieve the perfect skin. Stuff your herbs into the cavity of the upside down chicken, then place chicken and rack in a roasting pan, and stick it in the oven for 25 minutes. Remove it from the oven, and use two spatulas to turn it over so that the breast faces the top. I advise spatulas in lieu of tongs, because tongs have the anoying tendency to rip the skin, which is not the desired result. Spatulas are gentler. Once you've flipped your bird so that the breast side is facing up, sprinkle pepper on top and replace the ckicken in the oven for another 25 minutes, or until the chicken reaches an internal temperature of 140F. Raise the oven temperature to 500F, and cook for another 15 minutes, or until the internal temperature hits 165F. Remove the bird from the oven, and allow it to cool for 10 minutes before cutting it so that the juices get a chance to redistribute themselves.

A note about cooking at 500F: this temperature is high enough to burn all the dripped bits out of the bottom of your oven. As such, you may want to run your stove-top fan, and keep an eye on the bird to see if you need to open a window, because it may smoke a little. i've never yet had a bird catch fire, so I'm convinced this method is very safe, but because you're essentially cleaning the bottom of your oven by doing this, you may get smoke from some of the drips heating up.

Servings: 6-8, plus stock.