Slight Fear of Commitment Roast Chicken

Did you know that there’s a special chicken you eat when you get engaged.?  A chicken so treasured, so perfectly roasted, so exclusive, so only for people with fresh diamonds on their fingers that it’s actually called Engagement Roast Chicken.  Yea… it’s for people who have decided that they want to spend the rest of their lives with other people.  Boy oh boy…  engaged people have it GOOD!  

Or wait… maybe I’m understanding it wrong.  This is the sort of chicken you make for your significant other in order to prove your potential as a promising wife and partner.  In that case, I’m going to need A LOT more information about you, sir, before I make you this chicken.  Do you do dishes?  Do you do laundry?  Again… do you do dishes? Do you understand the concept of a retirement fund.  How do you act during football season?  Why do you watch the TV so loud, like seriously?  Put down your fork and let’s get down to brass tacks.   Also… chicken so good you’ll want to marry me?  Please… 

I’m not engaged.  Like… really not engaged.  I have a cat.  Have I told you about my cat?  (Don’t answer that.)  

I feel like… if we’re going to start making roasted chicken for very specific life and coupling events we should run the spectrum.  It’s only fair.  

Today’s roasted chicken is made in that spirit.  Consider these re-worked, more inclusive and (dare I say) realistic, recipe names:  

•  I’m Working On Me Roast Chicken

•  Why Hasn’t He Texted Me Back(?) Roast Chicken

•  I Folded My Laundry Like An Adult Roast Chicken

•  I’m Proud Of Myself For Not Ordering Takeout Tonight Roast Chicken

•  Slight Fear of Commitment Roast Chicken

•  I’d Rather Be Eating Cheese and Ice Cream Roast Chicken

•  I Didn’t Leave My Shopping Cart In The Middle Of The Parking Lot Roast Chicken

•  Was That A Date(?) Roast Chicken

•  But Really Why Is Everyone On Tinder(?) Roast Chicken

•  My Cat Is Going To Eat Half Of My Roast Chicken

•  I Generally Like Who I Am Roast Chicken

•  But I Had French Fries For Lunch Roast Chicken

I mean… we could go on forever and ever. Infinity Roast Chickens.

This recipe is easy, delicious, and all the way Ina Garten’s.  She knows her way about a chicken.  Let’s not mess with a good thing… let’s just make it less marriage-bound for sanity’s sake.  

We’re working with lemon, garlic and onions.  Keeping it simple and supreme.  

The inside of the chicken is seasoned with salt and pepper and stuffed with lemon wedges and a whole head of garlic, halved but raw.  Flavor inside the bird will roast up and out.  

The bird is brushed liberally with olive oil and seasoned liberally with coarse sea salt and fresh cracked black pepper.  

Into a roasting pan, or whatever sort of roasting-ish pan you might have on hand.  

Onions are sliced thick and tossed in olive oil, salt, and pepper along with the remaining lemon wedges.  

Essentially we want everything to taste exactly as it does, just highlighted with salt, pepper, and citrus.  

Wedged and nestled and ready to roast! 

While the chicken roasts, why not revisit old episodes of The Real World, Seattle… that’s what I would do / did.  

One hour and fifteen minutes to adult-living victory.  The chicken rests while we make a gravy… because we’re grown and we make gravy dangit.  We make gravy!

Any and every occasion roasted chicken. Tender ad juicy. Lemon scented with gravy. Almost sweet onions served with farro and peas. It’s dinner, we’re worth the time and energy.

And we should totally make homemade chicken stock when we’re done with the chicken. It’s what Ina would do. How easy is that? (And that’s what she’d say about it.)

All Occasion Roast Chicken

★★★★★ 5 from 1 reviews

• Author: Joy the Baker

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Ingredients

Scale 1x2x3x

• 1 (4 to 5 pound) whole roasting chicken
• Coarse sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 2 lemons, cut into quarters
• 1 whole head garlic, in tact, skins on, just cut in half horizontally
• olive oil
• 2 yellow onions, peeled and thickly sliced
• 1/4 cup dry white wine
• 1/2 cup chicken stock, preferably homemade
• 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour

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Instructions

1. Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.
2. Remove and discard the chicken giblets if you find them inside your chicken.
3. Pat the outside of the chicken dry with a paper towel. Liberally salt and pepper the inside of the chicken. Cut the lemons in quarters, place 2 quarters in the chicken along with the garlic and reserve the rest of the lemons wedges for the roasting pan.
4. Brush the outside of the chicken with olive oil and sprinkle the chicken liberally with salt and pepper. Tie the legs together with kitchen string and tuck the wing tips under the body of the chicken. I didn’t tie my chicken legs but you should have.
5. Place the chicken in a small (11 by 14-inch) roasting pan. (If the pan is too large, the onions will burn. You want to have everything close together. Toss the reserved lemons and onions in 2 tablespoons olive oil, a bit of salt and pepper. Squeeze the reserved lemons over and around the chicken and place everything in the roasting pan around the chicken.
6. Roast the chicken for about 1 hour and 15 minutes, until the juices run clear when you cut between a leg and a thigh. Remove the chicken to a platter and place onions and lemon on the platter with the chicken. Cover with aluminum foil, and allow to rest for 10 minutes while you prepare the sauce.
7. Place the roasting juices in a small saucepan, add chicken stock, and bring to a boil over medium heat.
8. Place flour in a small bowl and whisk in 3 tablespoons of the hot roasting juice and broth. Stir until no lumps remain and return the mixture to the saucepan. Add the white wine and stir, boiling gently, until thickened, about 5 minutes.
9. Carve the chicken onto a platter and serve with the lemons, onions, and warm sauce.

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