An Old Fashioned Sunday

This city never ceases to surprise me. Whether its with a totally normal looking but absolutely schizo crazy lady on the subway ranting about mobsters and thugs, a delicious $7 brunch (complete with mimosa!), or a freak thunderstorm that sneaks up out of nowhere in the 15 minutes you’re browsing around Jill Stuart.

I’d been planning on roasting a chicken tonight all week and looking anxiously forward to the grand event. I spent the day wandering the Tompkins Square farmers market looking for anything that caught my fancy and walked away with some of the most delicious little jewels of strawberries for breakfast this week and some beautiful lavender earl grey tea. My next stop was Sur la Table, truly a paradise through which I could wander for hours, imagining and cooking in my head all of the wonderful things I could make with all of the wonderful supplies they have in store. I picked up a roasting rack, some kitchen twine, and an adorable little mesh tea ball for my new tea.

I was set to wander around SoHo for another hour or so when I ducked into Jill Stuart for a mere moment, and when I looked out the windows again, the sky had grown so dark I wondered if they had tinted windows. Unfortunately it was actually dark outside at 3 in the afternoon and a torrential downpour was about to be unleashed upon an unwitting public.
I made it home a little wet and a little see-through in my white dress, but all in all unscathed. I tucked into my latest read for a couple hours before getting up to start my chicken. The recipe was also one of Jamie Oliver’s – but based on a very simple French Roasted Chicken. For the second time, I’d seen the technique of making a flavored butter, be it herb butter or, in this case, lemon butter, and rubbing it underneath the skin of the chicken and all over. True, it negates the idea of making an easy and healthy dinner, but the flavors are incredible.

I have to admit, this chicken should have been a piece of cake, but the whole thing turned out to be more of a misadventure and a debacle. Only because my oven doesn’t get as hot as it reads by about 50 degrees so when I pulled my chicken out, it wasn’t completely done…it could have used another 20 minutes. But I’d already moved it to a plate and eagerly started on the sauce to go with it before I discovered this (by slicing through the breast down to the pink raw center. So…I had to microwave it for about 5 minutes, letting a lot of the juices out and making it pretty dry. Luckily, the gravy I made (and also projectile-spilled half of all over my cabinets due to a slippery oven mitt and zero counter space – we’re talking literally about 8 inches long and about 6 inches deep) helped and the flavors were still so deep into the chicken that it tasted delicious – it just wasn’t the most moist chicken I’ve ever made.

This particular chicken was a lemon, thyme, and garlic chicken – a traditional combination that never disappoints. Its really a simple recipe and for those of you who get squeamish at the mere thought of putting your hands under chicken skin and rubbing butter all around...get over it. The idea is to get the flavors right down into the bird and, boy, does it work! My bird was bursting with flavor, the skin was nice and brown and crispy, and the sauce I made from the drippings was fantastic. Almost as good as the bird itself were the vegetables I roasted with the chicken, cooked in the chicken drippings and the butter that had melted off the bird as it cooked.

And even better, with all of these freak summer thunderstorms, one never knows when it will be absolutely necessary to tuck into bed and get nice and cozy with a bowl of chicken soup…which is why I’m so looking forward to the chicken stock I have simmering away on the stove right now made with the leftover bones, meat, and carcass. So not only do you get an amazingly delicious perfectly old-fashioned Sunday dinner, but you get really home-style chicken stock out of the deal, too.

(P.S. Don't be afraid of how many steps there are - they are really a lot of one-steps split into two so that you don't make any of the mistakes I did. Its not that hard - I promise!)

Jamie Oliver’s Fantastic Roasted Chicken

For the Chicken:
1 whole roasting chicken (I used a young chicken – they’re more tender)
1 whole lemon
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 ½ tablespoons fresh thyme, leaves only and chopped, plus a nice bunch for later
½ a stick of butter (4 tablespoons)
salt and pepper

For the vegetables
3 Yukon Gold potatoes
4 carrots, cut into large chunks and then split
1 whole onion, quartered and separated
3 garlic cloves cut in half

For the sauce at the end
¼- 1/3 cup white wine, depending on how much drippings you have left
1/3 cup chicken broth
1 tablespoon flour
1 tablespoon milk


1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees
2. Take out pack of giblets and chicken parts from chicken cavity and rinse the chicken inside and out. Pat dry and set aside.
3. Melt butter and set aside.
4. Zest lemon into melted butter, mix in thyme and garlic
5. Put the butter in the fridge for a little while until it is soft and mushy.
6. In the meantime, run your fingers under the skin of the chicken breast, between the skin and the meat, creating a space. Be careful not to tear the skin – you should be able to do this with little resistance and be gentle- its easier than it seems. If you do meet resistance just work it slowly and gently-it will give in to you.
7. Slash the thigh meat with a knife – it will let the heat penetrate better and cook more evenly.
8. When the butter has congealed, set some of it aside to cook with the vegetables – do not just take leftovers from that which you smear all over the chicken – you don’t want cross contamination. Take scoops of it and run it along the breast meat under the skin and all over the top and sides of the bird. Just get that butter everywhere and don’t be afraid to use most of it or all of it depending on the size of your bird. After it has been coated with the butter, sprinkle the chicken with salt and pepper. Cut the zested lemon in half and stick the two halves in the chicken cavity along with a bunch of thyme. Tie up the legs with kitchen string.
9. Put the bird in the oven.
10. Boil a pot of water and boil the potatoes for 5-10 minutes, until they just begin to soften and then drain them and set them aside.
11. After 20 minutes, take the bird out, and take out of the roasting pan – set aside on a plate. Pour potatoes, carrots, onions, and garlic into pan where Chicken has been roasting. Toss them in the butter that should have melted out of the chicken and if there doesn’t seem to be enough, add some of the reserved lemon butter.
12. Place the chicken back on top of the vegetables and roast for 40-60 minutes more depending on your oven. You will know the chicken is done when you cut between the leg and the breast and the juices run clear.
13. Meanwhile, mix flour and milk in small bowl to make a roux that will thicken the juices from the chicken into thin gravy.
14. Take out chicken and vegetables from pan, making sure to pour any juices from the chicken into the empty roasting pan.
15. Place the roasting pan over a burner on the stove and turn the heat up to medium.
16. Pour in wine and deglaze the pan, scraping up all those yummy brown bits. When wine has reduced and brown bits have all come off the bottom, pour in chicken stock. Bring to a boil.
17. Whisk in roux, a little bit at a time, stopping when you’ve poured in about half as this is probably enough. Whisk quickly, making sure no lumps form. Bring the heat down to medium-high, still whisking to allow it to reduce and brown.
18. Serve chicken and pour gravy over carved portions…eat with vegetables and enjoy!


To make a stock…
Take all the leftover meat and bones, a whole onion, cut into quarters, a stick of celery roughly chopped, a carrot roughly choppe, and salt and pepper and put into a stockpot. Pour in enough water (probably about 3-4 cups of water) to just come to the top or barely cover whatever you’ve got in the pot. Bring everything to a boil and then reduce heat to low. Simmer uncovered for anywhere from 6-8 hour, skimming off any foam that rises occasionally. Strain the liquid into whatever container you’d like to store it in and let it cool to room temperature before storing it in the fridge over night. This is important because if it goes from hot to cold too quickly, bacteria will grow and you’ll have an icky stock. Chill it over night and in the morning, scrape off any fat that has accumulated into a cute layer on the top. Freeze for up to 1 month or put it in the fridge for up to a week!