Roast for One

My apologies in advance to the greatest of my vegetarian friends, Kevin and Misty, with whom I've experienced a genuine and totally unpretentious love of slow food.

Roasting a whole chicken has to be one of the easiest and economical ways to eat well and make yourself a week's worth of lunches in the process. I think that roasting a chicken and serving delicious sides like roasted garlic smashed red potatoes and haricots verts topped with caramelized plums is a great way to treat a dinner guest, but since there was no one around last weekend, I decided just to treat myself.

And this is a good thing (despite the crappy iPhone picture). My roast chicken is easy: 6 Tbs butter softened and mixed with a Tbs each of rosemary, thyme and sage, all of which are easy to grow in the back yard, along with some lemon thyme and the zest of one lemon. I rub this under the skin on both sides of the chicken and set it in my cast iron skillet in the oven for 90 minutes in a 400 degree oven. Voila. It's done. I throw in some garlic cloves for the last 45-60 minutes to get them roasted for the potatoes.

I pour off most of what's in the pan because it's largely chicken fat, but leave a few Tbs in as well as the dark stuff that sticks a bit--it's fond. I build the sauce on top of the fond by using 1 Tbs of the same butter mix I made (oh yeah--reserve a Tbs of that!) and a few Tbs of flour. This roux can cook on the stove under your watchful wooden spoon for a minute or two followed by a nice dose of white wine (a nice new liter bottle of a gruner vetliner, Austria's famous white, is available right now at the 300 West 1700 South wine store--it comes with a pop top like a beer bottle and is a pretty good, zippy little value). I add water to help achieve the right consistency and of course taste for salt and pepper. The lemon zest from the butter rub lends just the right amount of acidity to this pan sauce.


I would prefer to share with company (sharing food is a wonderful thing), but having at least four days' worth of leftovers that I can freeze in single servings is a nice consolation prize.