Meghan Markle made roasting chicken much more romantic when she divulged she was doing just that when Prince Harry got down on one knee. But I’ve been pushing the whole bird and the oven as the perfect marriage of deliciousness and sustainable eating for a while now.
Buying the whole bird, instead of skinless, spineless bits and pieces, gives a green-minded cook an affordable way to support local farmers humanely raising pastured chickens. Roasting it once and serving the meat three different ways gives a cook a chance to practice both right-sizing animal protein portions to fit a sustainable diet and using every last bit of the bird to avoid food waste.
I am always on the prowl for new ways to prepare a whole bird that cuts down on the amount of energy it takes to cook it through. In my cookbook, “Green Plate Special,” I espouse the spatchcock method in which you cut the backbone out of the chicken with a pair of kitchen shears so the bird lays flat on a sheet pan and roasts in 30 percent less time than if it were sitting up straight. And in this column, I’ve written about how the Chinese use the residual heat of poaching liquid to pull off White Cut Chicken.
I recently watched a YouTube video of British chef Jamie Oliver slathering a whole chicken with a flavorful, store-bought curry paste and putting the bird directly on a middle rack of a hot oven. He places a roasting pan of thick-cut root vegetables on a rack below it with a couple inches of space separating the bottom of the chicken and the tops of the vegetables to allow the hot air to fully circulate around the bird. The bird’s juices drip onto the vegetables below.
I was skeptical this method would serve up a bird any different from one roasted on a smaller rack sitting in the pan with the vegetables directly under it. And, as a practical matter, I worried about what cooking a bird directly on the oven rack would mean for the state of my oven and conversely, what the rack’s baked-on residue would mean for the bird’s skin.
So, of course, I had to give it a go. I passed on the jarred paste, opting for a butter mix of lemon zest, smoked paprika, red pepper flakes and parsley that I tucked under the chicken’s skin on all sides.
I was pleasantly surprised to find that the roasting time was cut by 15 minutes, the skin was crispy all around (always a bonus) and, despite my fears, it did not stick to the rack it sat on. The vegetables roasted more evenly, and the pan sauce was plentiful enough to make a nice complement to the meal but not so much as to make the bottom of the roast vegetables mushy.
And, because the bird was not in the pan, I’d room to roast extra vegetables to make hash for breakfast the next day.
This one’s a keeper, like Meghan believes her Harry is.
ABOUT THE WRITER
CHRISTINE BURNS RUDALEVIGE is a food writer, recipe developer and tester and cooking teacher in Brunswick, and the author of “Green Plate Special,” a cookbook from Islandport based on these columns. She can be contacted at cburns1227@gmail.com.
Smoky Roasted Chicken and Root Vegetables
Making a compound butter and spreading it all over the bird, under and on top of the skin, flavors the chicken and mixes with the juices that drip down onto the roast vegetables in the pan underneath. This particular butter mixes Dresden-based Gryffon Ridge Spice Merchants’ smoked sweet paprika and mild Aleppo red pepper flakes, but any of the company’s poultry blends would work well in this recipe.
Serves 4 to 6
1 (4-pound) whole chicken
1 lemon
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup roughly chopped fresh parsley
1 tablespoon smoked sweet paprika
1 teaspoon Aleppo red pepper flakes
Kosher salt
1 small head of garlic, sliced in half, crosswise
3 tablespoons olive oil
3 pounds root vegetables, scrubbed and cut into 2-inch chunks
1 teaspoon slightly crushed caraway or fennel seeds
Pat the chicken dry.
Zest the lemon. Cut it in half, and squeeze the juice into a small bowl.
Combine the zest, butter, parsley, paprika, red pepper flakes and 1 teaspoon kosher salt in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse to combine into a smooth paste.
Place the chicken on a washable cutting board. Use your hands or a soft spatula to gently create some space under the skin of the bird all over the bird. Use your hands to evenly distribute half of the flavored butter between the flesh and skin. Rub the other half of the butter all over the outside of the chicken.
Stuff the spent lemon halves and garlic halves into the cavity of the chicken. Use a piece of kitchen twine to tie the legs of the chicken together.
Place 2 racks in the lower third of oven. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.
Take a roasting pan or baking dish just large enough to accommodate the root vegetables in a single crowded layer and coat it with 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Arrange the vegetables in the pan. Drizzle the remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil and reserved lemon juice over the vegetables. Season with salt and caraway seeds. Toss to coat the vegetables. Place the pan on the lower rack, then the set chicken, breast side up and tail facing oven door (this will make it easier to remove when it’s done), directly on the oven rack above the vegetables. Roast the chicken and vegetables until a thermometer inserted into the thickest part of chicken thigh registers 165 degrees F, 45-50 minutes. If you don’t have a thermometer, you can tell a chicken is cooked through if you pierce the thigh with a skewer and the juice runs clear.
Insert the handle of a wooden spoon into the chicken’s cavity and carefully tilt the bird toward you to allow juices in cavity to drain into pan below. Remove the vegetables from the oven and then remove chicken from oven and place on top of vegetables. Let the chicken rest 10 minutes before carving.
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