As promised, here is my first crack at a Smitten Kitchen recipe. I decided to try Deb’s Flat Roasted Chicken. In the book, Deb says she can have this on the table in an hour. I figured that meant, I could have it on the table in about an hour and a half (hey, I’m a slow cook, what can I say?). The most difficult part of the recipe was cutting the backbone out of the chicken. I forgot that my kitchen shears are horrid and thus, cutting out the backbone was a display of my strength (seriously. it was work). However, if you possess kitchen shears that are not horrible, I’m confident you’d have no trouble.
This is seriously the easiest thing to make. Season the chicken with salt and pepper and put it in your pan. Tuck some potatoes (I used baby red potatoes) around the chicken and season them. Drizzle a little olive oil over everything and roast for 45 minutes at 450 degrees. Once it comes out of the oven squeeze the juice of a lemon over everything and sprinkle thyme over the chicken. I was out of fresh thyme, so I used rosemary instead. This was so tasty. Smitten Kitchen success!
Coming out of the oven…
After sprinkling with rosemary and squeezing lemon over the food…
If you buy your chicken from the butcher section of the store, you can just ask the butcher to take out the backbone for you.
Looks great!
Ah, so true – thanks Kathy for the tip! 🙂
Once you’re off the fast, you might want to try Thomas Keller’s roast chicken method. I do this all the time, and it has never failed and is always moist and divine… and no scissors required!
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/My-Favorite-Simple-Roast-Chicken-231348
I do it even simpler… I rinse well and pat dry, and don’t truss — I just leave on the strings from the grocery store. I also skip the thyme, butter, and mustard, though I’m sure those would be delicious.
Thanks, Aryn! I just added this recipe to pinterest. You can never have enough great chicken recipes!