I made my first whole roast chicken for dinner last night! It was so easy. My only gripe was that it smoked out the whole house. I'm sure it's because I put too much olive oil on the bird and started it off on too high of a rack, oops. I ended up covering the bird with foil so the breast wouldn't burn up as it was browning quickly.
I used a 4 lb chicken, stuffed it with half a lemon and some salt. I shoved some pats of butter under the skin of the breast and rubbed more butter on the skin (only 1 tbs total). Then I drizzled with olive oil and put it into a 425 degree oven. I cooked the chicken for around an hour and a half since I didn't have time to let the chicken sit out to get to room temperature before hand. When it was done I squeezed the other half of the lemon on top and sprinkled some salt. I found the recipe in my Nigella cookbook. I also did lazy mashed potatoes along with it (also from Nigella). I threw in a few washed and scrubbed potatoes in the oven with the chicken. When they were done I opened them and scraped out the insides, mixed with some butter and milk, and voila! They tasted yummy too, a nice variation from regular ol' boiled mashed potatoes.
The chicken was good but I didn't taste much if any lemon flavor. I think in the future I will stuff garlic and onion into the chicken cavity. I also want to try a free range chicken, supposedly they taste better.
We shall see.
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