Roasted chicken

Tonight I made my very first roasted chicken. I got the chicken from the CSA and I was so excited to try it out. I have always heard how easy it is to roast a chicken, but had never tried it. Getting the chicken from the CSA was the perfect opportunity to try it out. I had planned on making it this weekend and it worked out well because we ended up eating with my mother in law and grandmother in law.

I googled some recipes, but I wanted to do something really simple. I ended up brining it for several hours first. I put the chicken in a big bowl, filled it with water and added about 1/4 cup kosher salt. The chicken was brined for about 3 hours. Afterwards, I rinsed it well. I rubbed melted butter all over the outside and inside of the chicken and then salted and peppered it inside and out. I also put some butter and seasoning under the skin, over the breasts. I roasted it at 425 for 20 min and then 375 for 1 more hour. I turned it upside to rest so that the juices would run into the breasts.

Now, I had found a recipe for a sauce reduction that looked pretty easy, so I wanted to give it a try. This ended up being the hit of the dinner! After I took the chicken out of the pan, I took out the big pieces of anything and then took out as much fat as I could with a spoon. Next I deglazed with some white wine. I put the pan right on a burner and added 1 1/2 cups of chicken stock and boiled it down until it was syrupy. Added another 1 1/2 cups of stock and boiled it down until it was about 3/4 cups. As a reduction it is different from a gravy in that it is very intense in flavor....and really good. Zack wants me to make another chicken just so he could have that sauce again!

I also got to share some of our farm fresh produce with my mother in law and grandmother in law. We made a nice big salad with some of the black seeded simpson and spinach. A little blue cheese, olive oil and balsalmic vinegar and we had us one tasty salad.

The roasted chicken was incredibly easy and very very good. We also had bread out of the oven, corn, garlic mashed potatoes (roasted a bulb of garlic for an hour in the oven with the chicken, squeeze the garlic out of the bulb like toothpaste right into the potatoes), salad and mother in law made some really good brownies for dessert! It was a great meal.