The $18 Chicken that Blew our Minds

I hit up the Farmer’s Market on Saturday and procured me an $18 free-range, antibiotic-free, local, butchered 4 lb chicken.  I have a go-to recipe that I always use to roast a chicken.  It involves lemons, garlic, thyme, olive oil, etc.  Well, much to my dismay, I could not locate the recipe.  Whilst looking for it I discovered this recipe that I printed out a while back:  Perfect Roasted Chicken.

I was a little wary of the recipe, as it calls for cooking the chicken at 500 degrees, which is WAY higher than I usually cook chicken.  However, as I told my friend who walked into the smoky kitchen mid-bake, “Mark Sisson has never led me astray on a recipe yet.”  And he didn’t this time either.  The chicken was AMAZING.  The skin was salty and crispy.  The flesh was juicy and flavorful.  It looked beautiful.

I followed the recipe to the T, as is my m.o.  I rubbed it down with salt, pepper, oregano, and basil and stuffed sage between the skin and flesh.  I left it uncovered in the fridge overnight for about 24 hours.  It was a 4 lb bird, so I cooked it for 40 minutes exactly.  It was 170 by the thighs and about 200 elsewhere, but it still didn’t taste dry.  I never know what to do with the innards, so I froze them (and I froze the carcass too when done) to make bone broth with down the road.

We had the chicken with sauteed heirloom kale and baked sweet potatoes.  It was an excellently delicious supper that will hopefully counteract my late afternoon binge on mini candy bars.  Why oh why do people think it’s OK to leave bags of candy on my desk??  They think that because I am slender that candy doesn’t tempt me, but they could not be more wrong. The reason I do not weigh 200 lbs is because I KNOW I have issues with self control, so I don’t buy or store things that are delicious and bad for me within arm’s reach.  After snarfing a dark chocolate Milky Way, 3 Musketeers, Snickers, regular Milky Way, and I believe a Twix (I had to try one of everything), I moved the candy to a cubicle 15 feet away.  Damn delicious candy.