Saturday, November 20, 2010

roast chicken for les paresseux

This was a great roast chicken!  I don’t know about the ‘for les paresseux’ part as I made this on a Monday night after a long day at work and had to have dinner ready before the family started heading out the door for various activities.  Dorie calls this chicken for lazy people as you put it in a Dutch oven and just forget about it until it’s done.  While the prep was easy, ½ a head of garlic in the cavity and ½ in the bottom of the pot along with some herbs and wine, followed by a simple sprinkle of salt and pepper on the bird, I didn’t have a Dutch oven so I used our normal Pyrex dish (which does not have high sides).  This normally works well but I guess with the addition of a bit of oil in the pan the bird was really splattering and popping, making me check it often for fear of a fire.  I finally took some tin foil and fashioned sides for my Pyrex dish and that seemed to do the trick.  I did add the shallots at the ½ way mark but skipped the veggies as D requested mashed potatoes that night and I don’t like cooked carrots. 



The chicken turned out very crispy and juicy.  Actually L commented that it wasn’t done because it still had juice running from it.  I said the juice just has to be clear.  The crisp skin of a chicken is one of my favourite parts but I declared that night that L does not respect the skin!  He doesn’t eat it so while carving this chicken for me he let it flop around in the pan juices thus loosing some of it’s crispness.  It was still good but I think I’ll take care of that part next time. 

The best part of this for me was the pan drippings.  Yum!  While the chicken was really very similar to how we normally roast I don’t usually add garlic, shallots and wine to the pan.  I did add some more wine while reducing the drippings and turned this into gravy with the addition of a bit of flour and water.  Delicious! 

I’ll add that I liked the bread trick but I’ll leave it up to those readers that don’t have Dorie’s book, Around my French Table, to pick themselves up a copy and find this recipe and all the other wonderful ones.

Who knew one could talk so much about chicken!

6 comments:

  1. Nicely roasted. Makes me wish I had some for our dinner tonight! Maybe I'd better get busy.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Using tin foil to add higher walls to your Pyrex dish...genius!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I second that Yummychunklet! Pure genius! And here I actually bought a dutch oven and used my pyrex dish as a cutting board.

    ReplyDelete
  4. This cook-a-long is causing me to make a quite extensive kitchen equipment wish list - a Dutch oven is at the top. It's a great recipe and your bird turned out nicely.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Glad you liked it. I made it a couple of weeks ago, but haven't posted yet, because I'm too lazy! The best way to get crisp skin is to stand over the roasting pan and strip it off and eat it before carving. I speak from experience!
    :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. I loved the pan dripping gravy too! It had such a lovely, intense flavor. I would have beat my hubby if he'd ruined my crispy skin...you are a better woman than I!!!

    ReplyDelete