Coming off of a football/tailgating/beer drinking weekend, William and I were (fairly) strict vegetarians last week. With a profound hankering for meat, we broke our veggie streak with a beautiful herb-roasted chicken. Not just any chicken. It’s the second time I’ve roasted a Pollo Buono chicken, available at Whole Foods. The humanely raised birds are tender, have plenty of fat (which comes in handy for roasting vegetables) and just plain taste better than the standard super market bird. Of course they cost more, too, but it’s worth it.
Beneath the bird, I roasted a mixture of turnips (one of my all-time favorite vegetables), sweet potatoes and rutatbagas. I gave them a light toss in olive oil, but they insisted on soaking up chicken fat as they cooked. If you’re looking for a way to make vegetables decadent, this it is.
William’s comments on the meal: “Why don’t we eat meat every night?” (So we’ll enjoy it this much when we do.) “There are people who don’t eat this well at Thanksgiving.” (Damn shame, isn’t it?)
We swabbed our plates with out fingers, ate chicken crispy chicken skin from the cutting board and saved leftover fat to work magic in another meal. I also used the roasted carcass to make a pot of chicken stock. Good work little bird.
Herb Roasted Chicken with Root Vegetables
3 tablespoons chopped mixed herbs (I used tarragon, sage, and rosemary)
6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon salt
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
3 pounds root vegetables, peeled and cut into 1-inch chunks
1 3(ish)-pound chicken
Instructions
Preheat oven to 400°.
Combine herbs, olive oil, salt, and pepper. Toss the root vegetables with 1/3 of the olive oil mixture, and place them in the bottom of a medium-sized roasting pan. Place roasting rack on top to the vegetables, and adjust their placement as necessary.
Truss your chicken with kitchen twine—not a necessary step but one that makes for a more beautiful, evenly cooked bird. (Here’s a video how to on trussing a chicken.) Place the chicken, breast side down, on the roasting rack.
Place chicken in the oven, and bake for 20 minutes, until the under side of the bird is golden. Baste with a few spoonfuls of the olive oil mixture. Flip the bird so it’s breast side up, baste with more olive oil, and return to oven. Reduce heat to 350°. Bake chicken 40 to 50 minutes more, basting periodically with olive oil. When chicken is golden and the internal temperature reaches 165°, remove from oven. Let the chicken rest for 10 minutes, and carve into 8 pieces.
Serve with roasted vegetables.
Serves 4
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
You can trim more fat from the bird before it goes into the oven and suck up excess fat with a turkey baster as the chicken and vegetables cook. For my recipe, you also could cut back on the olive oil, and rely more on chicken fat to baste the bird and coat the vegetables.
What a beautiful bird! Graham and I also love to roast chicken but sometimes I find that my roasted veggies get a little greasy from the chicken fat. Any tips? Maybe I am not using the right ones…