One Way To Roast A Chicken

You know that old Paul Simon song, Fifty Ways To Leave Your Lover? Well, there are probably fifty ways to do just about anything, including roast a chicken.

Here is one way. The way Kendal did it most recently.*

Butter it up.


(Poor, headless chickie-chickie. Sometimes I think I should be a vegetarian.)

While the oven is preheating to 500 degrees, rinse and dry the chicken and then coat it with enough butter to cover the whole bird.

Put it down.

Place the chicken in a roasting pan, breast side down, and cook for 20 minutes.

While the chicken is cooking, mix up a sauce with which to baste it. Kendal used Worcestershire sauce, barbecue sauce, Trader Joe's 21 Seasoning Salute, and 2-3 cloves of garlic (minced). No specific measurements, simply to taste.

Douse it.

After the first 20 minutes of cooking, baste the chicken with your mixture.


(What it will look like at this stage.)

Flip it.

Now, flip that bird over, and baste the other side.

The chicken is now breast-side-up. Put it back in the oven this way, and cook for another 8 minutes.

Turn Down the Heat.

Turn the oven down to 325 degrees. Baste the chicken again. (Don't flip it over this time.) Cook for another 30 minutes, or until it is done. One way to tell if the chicken is done cooking is if the juices run clear when you pierce it.


(Done!)

Be careful not to overcook it--too dry. Be careful not to undercook it--too salmonella-y. Cook it just right and it will be moist--gah! I hate that word, but it's the only one that fits--and delicious.


*Adapted from How To Cook Everything by Mark Bittman (p. 358).