“You can always judge the quality of a cook or a restaurant by roast chicken.”

Julia Child

Hi there,

Today I am going to share with you my version of roasted chicken. I proceeded with this recipe investigation like Goldilocks. I tried Julia Child’s recipe and found chopping and cooking the vegetables along with the massaging a tad too much work. (Besides, I figure if anything is going to get a massage its going to be me🤣)

Then I tried Ina Garten’s roasted chicken. Ina uses similar herbs to my variation but she uses butter and doesn’t use lemon. And, she’s cooking for Jeffrey, and I’m cooking for Dom, who prefers olive oil to butter.

Well, the following is my recipe and as Goldilocks would say, my family finds it to be “just right”.

Roasted Chicken

Ingredients:

• 5 lb. roaster
• 1 fennel bulb
• 2 leeks
• 1 lemon
• 2 sprigs each of rosemary and thyme
• EVO
• 1/2 cup of white wine
• salt and pepper

Directions:

• preheat oven to 400 degrees
• in the bottom of roasting pan put the sliced fennel and leeks
• add 1/2 cup of wine and salt & paper to leeks (I like to use Aleppo pepper)
• dry the roasting chicken inside and out
• stuff with rosemary, thyme and lemon sliced into quarters
• spray or baste liberally the entire roaster with evo
• liberally cover with salt and pepper
• roast for approximately 1 and 1/2 hours or until 165 degrees internal temperature is reached
• remove roaster from over and allow to rest on cutting board to about 10 minutes
• with an immersion stick grind the leeks and fennel and combine with pan drippings
• place the pan dripping puree on a serving platter and top with cut up chicken

Special note:

Aleppo Pepper is a favorite spice of mine. It is a little hotter but much more mellow than black pepper. Also, its red color gives foods a nice spark of color as you can see in the photo. If you can’t find Aleppo Pepper at the supermarket, it is easily available at Amazon. This is a favorite company dish because of its ease of preparation. I serve it with balsamic glazed Brussel sprouts and savory twice baked sweet potatoes.