Lemon and Herb Roasted Chicken!

I’m back with recipes!  Its been way too long. I have never felt this great to be back into the cooking and baking.

First up was from two weekends ago, I made Lemon and Herb Roasted Chicken otherwise called “The Roastess with the Mostest” from Looneyspoons Collection.

When in doubt, I always make some chicken and when you have a whole chicken, you just mix up some marinade and pour it over the chicken and stick it in the oven.  When you do recipes like that, its really the marinade and seasoning that makes all the difference. This one was quite different actually. It was fun to explore into the fresh herbs as seasoning.

Ingredients:

1 whole chicken (about 4lbs/1.8kg)

1 tbsp Dijon mustard

1 tbsp brown sugar

1 tbsp brown sugar

1 tbsp minced fresh rosemary

1 tbsp minced fresh thyme

1 tsp minced garlic

1 tsp olive oil

1/2 tsp each salt and ground black pepper

1 tbsp  lemon juice

1. Move oven rack to bottom third of oven. Preheat oven to 425F.  Place a small rack inside a roasting pan.  Pour 1 cup water in pan.  Rinse chicken inside and out, and pat dry with paper towels

2. In a small bowl, mix together mustard, brown sugar, rosemary, thyme, garlic, oil, salt and pepper to make a paste.  Set aside.

3. Squeeze juice from lemon inside cavity of chicken. Rub reserved paste over surface of  chicken, and using your fingers, carefully rub paste between skin and meat on breast and thighs.

4. Place chicken on rack breast-side down.  Roast, uncovered, for 30 minutes. Remove chicken from oven and flip over.  Add a bit more water if it has evaporated.  Return to oven and roast for 35 to 40 more minutes, depending on size of bird.  If chicken browns too quickly, cover it loosely with foil.  When cooked, legs should move easily in sockets and thigh juices should be clear (not pink) when pierced with a small knife.

5. Remove chicken from oven and let rest for 10 minutes before carving.

This is already modified to how I did it.  The original recipe has the marinade with 1 tsp grated lemon zest mixed in before you set it aside.  Also, if you have a lemon, you could use freshly squeezed lemon juice into the cavity and then use the rest of the lemon and sit it into the cavity and then tie the legs up before you place it in the oven.  I would assume this would give it more of a zesty taste.

This chicken is very tender.  I’ve never baked chicken where there was additional water at the bottom of the pan to evaporate.  I think its what makes it less dry. The way I did it was more herb roasted tasting than lemon.  I actually don’t mind that as I’m not particularly into the zesty taste, either is my boyfriend so I think it worked well.