Roast Herbed Chicken

You’d be surprised at how simple it is to make this chicken dish and yet wow your family and friends with its superb flavors.    All you have to do is marinade a freshly-bought whole chicken with the herbs identified below, and then bake it.   Minimum effort, maximum impact.

All you will need are:

• 1 whole chicken
• rock salt
• freshly ground black pepper
• fresh rosemary leaves (I used the McCormick’s spice version)
• finely chopped fresh sage (I skipped this because I couldn’t find one)
• fresh thyme leaves (I also substituted this with McCormick’s)
• freshly grated lemon zest
• bay leaf
• soy sauce
• 1 whole onion, peeled
• unpeeled new or baby potatoes, cleaned
• shallots, peeled
• 1/2 cup butter

1.  Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit.

2.  Wash chicken under cold running water and pat dry.

3.  Mix salt, pepper, rosemary, sage, thyme and lemon zest.  Rub skin and cavity of the chicken with mixed herbs.  Place bay leaves in the cavity.  Massage soy sauce into the skin and cavity of the chicken.  Place onion inside the cavity and tie the legs together with kitchen twine to hold shape.

5.   Place chicken in a baking pan and surround with potatoes and shallots.  Sprinkle with more of the herb mixture.  Brush chicken and vegetable with butter and cover with foil.

6.  Bake chicken until juices run clear when pierced, about 45 minutes to 1 hour, basting chicken occasionally and mixing potatoes from time to time.

7.  Remove foil and back again for another 10 minutes to brown the chicken.  Once done, remove chicken from the pan and deglaze pan juices to serve as sauce for the chicken.

Since we don’t have a baking oven or mini-rotisserie at home, we made use of our Saladmaster Electric Skillet to bake the chicken.   We have to tweak steps 6-7 above  and adjusted the temperature settings of the Saladmaster Electric Skillet for the chicken to cook just as wonderful as the oven-baked one.   The result was a perfectly-baked chicken cooked for less than an hour.

Because of the limited size of the skillet we cannot put inside the chicken  in one piece.  AJ has to cut it halfway in the middle so we can spread it (or make it lie flat) in the skillet.

The herbs added a wonderful flavor and fragrance into the chicken and vegetables, and I think the flavors would have seeped more inside the meat if I let the marinaded chicken “rest” first before baking it.

I plan to do this again but will cook it using a turbo broiler (to be borrowed from my mom, hehe).   And this time too, there will be a gravy to complete this classic roast chicken meal!

(This simple but amazing recipe is from Yummy Magazine – July 2011 issue.)