Poulet Roti- Roast Chicken

It seems everyone these days is on the Julia Child bandwagon. I'll admit right up front, I'm one of them! My younger brother bought me "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" for Christmas this year. This wonderful set contains just about everything from the incredibly intimidating to the tastefully simple. My goal is not to cook my way through the book, simply to add a little more french cooking to my life. And lets be honest, who can really say they have too much french cooking in their life?! I figured I'd kick off this blog with a very simple recipe with a few of my own twists.




Roast Chicken

*Recipe adapted from Mastering the Art of French Cooking

-One 3-4 pound, ready-to-cook roasting or frying chicken (Make sure it is thawed!)
-3/4 tsp. salt
-2 Tbl. unsalted butter
-5-6 small baby carrots or one large carrot, sliced
-1/2 of a small onion, sliced
-2 Tbl. unsalted butter (for basting)

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

Unwrap your chicken and throughly rinse and pat dry. Most original recipes call for the chicken to be trussed at this point, however it is not necessary. I simply bend the wings behind the chicken and cross the legs over one another (if they will not stay, its certainly no big deal and if you have kitchen twine you may tie them together at this point).

In a roasting pan (one large enough to accommodate the chicken), place you chicken. Sprinkle a bit of the salt inside the chicken and place some of the butter inside the chicken as well. Salt the outside of the chicken and rub with the remaining first 2 Tbl. of butter. At this point you may also add some black pepper and any herbs you like to the skin of the chicken. Place inside the oven.



Allow the chicken to brown a bit for the first 15 minutes, then, turn the oven heat down to 350 degrees. At this point your chicken should take approximately 1 hour to an hour and 20 minutes to finish cooking. Continue basting the chicken with your remaining 2 Tbl. of butter throughout the remainder of the cooking process. I recommend a pastry brush for this job.

The chicken is finished cooking when the internal temperature reads 180 degrees (the thermometer should be placed in the thickest tissue of the chicken breast). Remove the chicken from the oven and from the roasting pan. Place on a plate and cover with aluminum foil. If you cut into your delicious looking chicken right now you will be sorry! Let it rest for at least 5 minutes before carving otherwise you will be sorry! This resting time gives the juices a chance to absorb back into the meat and if you cut it immediately after removing it from the oven all of those lovely juices will run out onto your plate.


(image courtesy of finecooking.com)

At this point you may pull out your vegetables to serve along side of the chicken. You may also make a gravy sauce from the remaining drippings in your roasting pan. This can be done simply by placing the roasting pan over medium high heat (if your pan is not suitable for the stove top, carefully transfer the drippings to a saucepan) and adding a half cup of low sodium chicken stock and 1 to 2 Tbl. of flour. Whisk the sauce and simmer until thickened.




Voila your chicken is ready! I served mine along with some roasted garlic mashed potatoes and a very nice Beaujolais wine.

Bon Appetit!