Secret Recipe Club: Jamie Oliver's Perfect Roast Chicken

It's that time of the month again: Secret Recipe Club time! The Secret Recipe Club is the brain child of Amanda of Amanda's Cookin. It's become so popular that it's been split into groups and I am a member of group B, lead by the corageous Tina of Mom's Crazy Cooking! Each month, every particpant is assigned a blog to cook from. You can see my previous posts of Red, White, andBlueberry Cheesecake Bars, Green Tomato Gazpacho, and Baby Bok Choywith Shitake Mushrooms. Interested in joining in the fun? Fill out the form here to join!

This month I was assigned Danielle's blog: Mostly Food and Crafts. I was immediately drawn to this blog because of how different and yet similar it is to my own. Danielle has a series on Fridays (What I Bookmarked this Week) where she posts links to recipes and crafts from other sites (very different from me), but she also has a series called “Your recipe-my kitchen,” which is similar to my Double Take series. So much fun! I can't wait to make more recipes from this site. 

I spent time pouring through Danielle's blog, but didn't have too terribly far to look. Everyone knows I love roasted chicken, and I found three roasted chicken recipes quite easily. Since I was heading back to my parents' place to pick up my car, I decided to cook dinner for them and let them pick between Roast Chicken Thighs with Fennel, Garlic Roast Chicken, and Jamie Oliver's Perfect Roast Chicken. They opted for Jamie Oliver's Perfect Roast Chicken. Momma was kind enough to pick up all of the ingredients ahead of time, so throwing this meal together was a cinch. All photos are courtesy of Momma.

Jamie Oliver's Perfect Roast Chicken

adapted from Mostly Food and Crafts

serves 4

Ingredients:

1 four pound chicken

salt and fresh ground pepper (I used less than 2 tsp of salt total)

3 small handfuls of fresh herbs (basil, parsley, oregano) finely chopped

1/4 cup olive oil

1 lemon, halved

4 bay leaves, torn

2 sprigs fresh rosemary

2 onions, diced

8 new potatoes, chunked

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven and the roasting tray to 425 ºF. Wash chicken inside and out and pat dry. Rub the cavity with salt. Carefully separate the skin from the breast meat and sprinkle with salt, add the fresh herbs and drizzle in a bit of olive oil. 
2. Stuff the bird with the lemon, bay, and rosemary. Pull the skin forward making sure the flesh isn't exposed.
3. Slash each thigh 3-4 times and rub some fresh herbs into the skin. Now over the entire chicken, drizzle some olive oil and sprinkle with salt. 
4. Remove your hot tray from oven, drizzle a bit of olive oil, lay chicken breast side down and cook for 10 minutes. 
5. Pull chicken out of the pan. Line pan with diced onions and chunked potatoes. Flip the chicken and cook for 1 hour and 20 minutes, or until chicken has reached 165 ºF. Tent with foil and let rest 10 minutes before serving. Enjoy!

THOUGHTS:

It was roast chicken. Of course it was fabulous! It was my first time confidently cooking with lemon, and I was pleased with the results. However, I might be okay with spatchcocking the chicken in the future to avoid the pains of flipping the chicken. I mean, there is nothing simple about the act of flipping a hot chicken in a hot pan. Really. Save yourself the trouble. Just spatchcock it and avoid the whole flipping process. And you get to cook it for a shorter amount of time. It's a win-win.

If you like carrots, definitely add carrots to the potatoes and onions. You won't be disappointed.

VERDICT:

It's-easy-and-tasty: 1 vote!

The-amount-of-herbs-is-perfect: 1 vote!

I'll-spatchcock-in-the-future-but-this-is-really-good: 1 vote!

Many thanks to Momma and Dr. Pops for letting me take over their kitchen for an evening!