In my opinion, there are few things more delicious than a simple, but flavorful, oven roasted chicken. I had been day dreaming about this chicken all day long, knowing it was in the refrigerator just across the room waiting for me to escort it home and roast it until it is the envy of all other roasted chickens. The moist, tender, flavorful meat and the crispy, salty skin is utterly fabulous as is but it is also a great base ingredient for a multitude of other recipes. While I was in heaven just enjoying this chicken with no embellishment for dinner, tomorrow night it has a date with some pizza dough and BBQ sauce for my current favorite BBQ Chicken Pizza. If time permits, it is also going to turn exotic and transform itself into Curried Chicken Cashew Raisin Salad for a brown bag lunch.
Simple Roasted Chicken
1 3 1/2 - 4 lb chicken (preferably free range and organic)
olive oil
salt
pepper
garlic powder
cumin
chili powder
Preheat oven to 425 degrees (400 degrees for a convection oven). Clean, rinse and pat dry the chicken and place on a rack set inside a roasting pan, breast side down. Drizzle with olive oil and season with a dry spice rub. Roast for 20 minutes with the breast down. Turn chicken over and roast 20 minutes more with the breast side up. Finally turn chicken breast down for 10 minutes and once more with breast side up for 10 minutes. Check chicken for doneness with an instant read thermometer placed in the thigh. Let chicken rest for 20 minutes before carving.
Sounds simple and delish, just the way I like it. Do you cover it with a lid or foil by chance?
ReplyDeleteThis looks so good. The last time I bought chickens they were frozen and for some reason I am handicapped in the thawing department (refrigerator method - fail, in the sink method - fail, and too afraid to thaw on the counter). I wonder if I could buy a whole turkey unfrozen. Then I could try your fabulous recipe!
ReplyDeleteI just bought a small whole, organic unfrozen chicken at WalMart the other day. Good luck :)
DeleteExcellent! I needed to cook a bit longer, but otherwise, FANTASTIC and easy!
ReplyDeleteI'm glad to see that your recipe calls for roasting the chicken BREAST SIDE DOWN for the first 20 minutes. I lived in an old house, built in the 1920's and the original stove was still there. It had a little roll of paper kind of like a cookbook, for baking and roasting times. It recommended turkeys be roasted breast side down, to keep it moist. And I found this in an old cookbook from the 19300's, too. Thanks for your recipe. My name is Loo, I go by the name 'Blue Wolf.'
ReplyDeleteDelicious! I thought it was too easy too be so good but its indeed very easy and very good!
ReplyDeleteMade this tonight and it was very tasty!
ReplyDelete