Finger-lickin' Roast Chicken

I used to think that a Roast Chicken was a Roast Chicken was a Roast Chicken, but then I realized that no on made Roast Chicken quite like Mama fixed it, and then I tried to replicate the tastes myself (why I didn't just ASK her, I'll never understand, although I'd prefer her recipe for Chicken and Rice Casserole...hint, hint) and then I did a little Google action and saw just HOW MANY* variations there are so I picked one at random and made it when Matt's brother came to visit.

I selected this result, and here is the paraphrasing:

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

Take 1 five and a half pound free range chicken, remove the giblets, rinse with cool water and pat dry.

In a small bowl, combine 1/4 pound of softened butter with one half handful each of fresh thyme, oregano and parsley, chopped fine, and just mash them all together in there. (Might as well use your hands, because that's how this stuff gets to the chicken, anyway! It's quite a messy and fun operation!)



Rub the herbed butter under the skin, and all over the outside of the chicken. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, and stuff the cavity with a halved orange, a half a clove of garlic and a halved onion. Place the bird in the baking dish breast side up and add one whole onion to the bottom of the dish. Arrange six slices of onion across the breast of the chicken, and roast for 25 minutes.

Remove the bacon, baste the chicken with the drippings, and roast another 25 minutes, until the skin is brown and a thermometer in the leg reads 165.

Remove to a platter and let stand ten minutes, to let the juices settle.

This is when I scraped the drippings into a saucepan (my baking dish is glass, so I couldn't put it on a stovetop burner) over medium heat, added 2 tablespoons of flour, and stirred in 1 1/2 cups of chicken broth. Once the flour was all dissolved, I put in the 1/4 cup of dry sherry, and dashed in some salt and pepper.

Matt carved the chicken, while I rescued the orange halves from the cavity and squeezed them over the pieces of chicken on the serving plate.




The flavors of orange and thyme were particularly interesting together, in a very good way, while the buttered outside made for a crispy skin with a VERY juicy meat. This is definitely something I'll be making again!!




*I didn't actually see each and every one of them, but that particular Google return was quite extensive.