You have a lot of flexibility when doing a simple roast chicken. If your oven is hotter than 550ºF, you can wrap the chicken in foil to keep it from burning, and remove the foil a few minutes before the chicken is done for browning. If your oven is less than 400ºF, you can leave it in the oven longer, 90 minutes or more. If your oven warm, but too cool to roast a chicken, you can light a small fire. The heat from the fire will not only help bake your chicken, it will give you a smoky flavor.
Ingredients
- 1 whole chicken
- 2 Tbs olive oil
- Salt and paper
- Lemons
- Fresh herbs
- Aromatic vegetables
Preparation
Fire your oven until hot, and then let the heat fall to a low to moderate temperature, roughly 450-500ºF. Roast your chicken until done, according to the times listed above.
Rub inside and outside with olive oil.
Salt and pepper inside the cavity.
Place a whole pierced lemon, thyme and rosemary branches into the chicken’s cavity. One trick is to roll your lemons on the counter before piercing with knife to get better release of fluids.
Options
Place a layer of aromatics in the bottom of the pans (onions, carrots and celery), to start a nice sauce or gravy.
Use a steel pan when roasting, and add diced onions under the chicken. When the chicken is cooked, put the pan and the browned onions on a cool top and de-glaze the pan with Madeira wine, then add 2-3 Tbs butter to make a nice sauce.
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