Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: chicken, garlic, green beans, herbs, onion, potatoes
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:
- 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!)
- Take the chicken out of the fridge about an hour before you’re ready to cook it so that it returns to room temperature.
- Bring a large pot of water to boil and cook the potatoes and lime for 12 minutes.
- 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).
- Drain, allow potatoes to steam off excess water, and scratch them up with a fork so that they’ll be crunchier when roasted.
- 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.
- Coat the chicken with evoo, and sprinkle with minced herbs, and some more salt and fresh ground pepper.
- 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.
So, this was pretty good, but it wasn’t the greatest pizza i have ever made, but the photo above does not do it justice.
This is the first time in a long time that i have dared to make a wheat pizza crust for Joe. I am using the dough recipe from the New Best Recipe and substituting 1/3 of the bread flour with white wheat. This recipe yields 2 medium sized pizzas (one pizza is plenty for two hungry Jenkins).
Fortunately, our oven here is small, but just barely wide enough for our pizza stone. Unfortunately, it claims to only reach 500F, but i doubt it makes it that high. Instead of cooking our pizza the usual 7 minutes, I had to keep it in for 12-13 minutes, drying it out. When i cook our leftover (frozen) dough next Friday, i will try spraying the crust with extra oil before baking. If that doesn’t work, the next week i will try spraying the oven walls with water a couple times while cooking. I’ll keep you posted.
- 2 2/3 C bread flour
- 1 1/3 C whole wheat flour
- 3 t yeast
- 3/4 C warm (90 F) water
- 2 t salt
- 2 T olive oil
- 1 C lukewarm water
- sprinkle yeast over 3/4 C warm water and let sit for 5 minutes, or until foamy.
- pulse flour and salt in food processor to fluff and mix.
- add 1 C additional water plus olive oil to the yeast mixture, then slowly pour over flour in the food processor.
- mix until the water is fully incorporated.
- turn the dough out onto a floured counter and knead until only slightly tacky.
- place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl and turn to coat. Cover with plastic wrap and let it sit for 2 hours, or until doubled in size.
- gently turn the dough out onto a lightly floured counter and cut into three pieces. I typically freeze two. Just make sure that you put them in the fridge the day before you plan to use them.
- At this point, you can either bake it immediately, or (if you have things to do, or don’t time your pizza making well – like me) return the dough to the bowl and let it rise in the fridge for a couple hours. Just pull it out of the fridge at least an hour before you plan to bake it.
- Preheat oven to 550 (or as high as it will go). Lightly coat your hands with evoo and press the dough into a disc. top with sauce, cheese, etc. and bake for 6-10 minutes, depending on your oven temp.
roasted garlic:
- 1 bulb of garlic
- approx. 1 T evoo
- Preheat oven to 400 F (mine was preheated to 500 F for the pizza).
- Remove the outer skin of a whole bulb of garlic and chop off the top 1/4-1/2″ so that the tops of the cloves are exposed. Spray or sprinkle the top with olive oil so that all the cloves are coated.
- Loosely wrap the bulb with foil and bake for 35 minutes, or until the cloves are soft. When they are done, you should be able to easily squeeze them out of their skin.
two skinny jenkins 