two skinny jenkins

First, this photo does not do this dinner justice.  My first whole roasted chicken was almost perfect.  I had done my research (here, here and here) and go all my ingredients at my favorite grocery store in Guate, Super Verduras.  The chicken itself was kind of fun.  I was lucky that it was a Monday, so they had just gotten in fresh chickens and had not frozen them all yet.  Unlike what you might find at Whole Foods or any other grocery store in the states, this chickie still had all it’s parts with it.  The head and neck, legs, and all the other stuff was neatly tucked in the cavity.  Anyway, my ingredients were perfect and I had the proper cooking times worked out.  There was just one little hiccup – a simple, rookie mistake – when i plopped the bird down in the preheated pan, i put her in upside-down.  So after watching Mark Bittman’s video (twice!) on the technique of getting the dark and light meat cooked properly by placing the bird breasts-up, I did the opposite.

In the end, it was delicious, but the skin on the breast meat wasn’t nearly what it could have been.  Even though I cooked it for 55 minutes, attempting to dry the breasts out a bit (we like our meat drier), it was quite juicy.  Maybe you like it like that.

The Chicken

• 3-4 lb fresh chicken
• 5-6 sprigs fresh thyme
• 3 sprigs fresh rosemary (cut in half)
• 1 T minced fresh thyme
• 1 T minced fresh rosemary
• evoo
• salt and pepper
• 1 lime or lemon

The Veggies

These potatoes were super crunchy and delicious.  The onions, however were hit or miss. Some of them were burned, and some were perfectly cooked.  Next time, I would use a smaller pan (i

• 2 large russet potatoes, thoroughly scrubbed, peeled, and cut into 1 or 1.5″ cubes
• 2 large yellow onions, cut into 6-8 wedges
• 3 T evoo

Method:

1. trim the excess fat off the chicken, rinse with hot water, rub all over with salt and pepper and refrigerate.  (This method came from Jamie Oliver – I was just doing everything that reputable cooks said would make it taste better!)
2. Take the chicken out of the fridge about an hour before you’re ready to cook it so that it returns to room temperature.
3. Bring a large pot of water to boil and cook the potatoes and lime for 12 minutes.
4. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 500F with a large cast iron skillet in the oven.  (I just used a large metal pan, but cast iron is best).
5. Drain, allow potatoes to steam off excess water, and scratch them up with a fork so that they’ll be crunchier when roasted.
6. Carefully slice the lime almost in half, so that the juice will run out a little, and stick it inside the chicken with the sprigs of rosemary and thyme.
7. Coat the chicken with evoo, and sprinkle with minced herbs, and some more salt and fresh ground pepper.
8. Once the oven is preheated, remove the skillet and carefully pour in the 3 T of evoo.  Toss the veggies in the hot oil, place the bird DARK MEAT SIDE DOWN in the middle of the pan and pop it back in the oven for 45-50 minutes, until juices run clear.