Since I'd attempted a quiche, I thought it time to face my fears and roast a chicken. Julia put a lot of pressure on me with her comment at the beginning of the section in "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" on Poulet Roti (Roast Chicken): "You can always judge the quality of a cook or a restaurant by roast chicken." Uh oh, I've never roasted a whole chicken. Well, at least not all at once. I've made wings, I've cooked thighs and breasts, and even cooked a drumstick. But they were always separate pieces and the breasts usually had no bones or skin attached! Not only does Julia expect me to roast a chicken, but I'm supposed to "truss" it!
I decided today would be the day. The last obstacle I'd been facing was not having a mattress needle that would be needed to truss the chicken. That had been a pretty good excuse and I'd even looked in a couple of stores and not found one. I made the mistake of mentioning it to my wonderful mother-in-law. Guess what she had? Not only a mattress needle, she actually had an entire mattress repair kit. Who'd of thunk it? It is like new and had an assortment of needles. Not sure how I'd use them to repair my waterbed mattress but they look like they'll do the trick for sewing up a chicken for roasting. Never heard of trussing? Basically it is tying the wings against the body of the chicken so they don't spread out as it roasts and sewing the opening together to hold any stuffing inside. Here's the diagrams -- didn't look too hard but I could tell it would require me to touch the bird.
After a trip to the grocery store I found a nice little fresh, not frozen, chicken "ready for roasting." I cut open its nice little bag and was ready to begin. Julia said I should add some salt and pepper inside of the bird before sewing it closed. That's where I had my first surprise -- I reached inside to rub some salt and found that it wasn't empty! What?!?! I found an alien inside!! It looked like a snake but I quickly realized it was the birds disconnected neck. Luckily there was no head attached. Then I kept finding treasures inside - I recognized the liver but I'm not sure what the other collection of pieces were. Gizzard? Heart? Appendix? What were those pieces doing in there anyway? I don't think the chicken was using them any longer. Was this a Dr. Frankenstein starter kit? I do know Julia has some wonderful sauce recipes using the leftover pieces but sorry, not tonight.
As I got to the third diagram of trussing instructions I realized that my needle was about 1/3 the length Julia used. I suppose French mattresses are thicker than American ones? I dug deep into my culinary skills and sewed two small loops of string to hold the wings in instead of one giant loop that passed all the way through the chicken's body. It didn't seem to mind and everything held together nicely. All that worrying for nothing. You could do this -- truss me!
The trickier part ended up being browning the bird before it was put in the roasting pan. It turns out that the French method is to brown the skin in a pan before roasting it and then covering it with foil and the lid on the pan. The coverings keep the chicken nice and moist but also keep it from getting dried out. Well, I didn't quite master the browning technique and I'm blaming it on not having the wooden spoons Julia says I should use. We have all plastic spoons so they won't scratch our non-stick pans. Any guesses what happens to a plastic spoon when it gets warm? It gets nice and bendy -- not much use in lifting a hot chicken. I managed to brown it a bit but next time I know that I need to make it more uniformly brown 'cause it isn't happening in the roasting pan with the foil and lid. Then again, I may cheat next time and take the lid off...
But wait, this wasn't just any old roasted chicken. I actually went the extra mile for my first chicken and made "Poulet en Cocotte Bonne Femme" (Casserole-roasted Chicken with Bacon, Onions, and Potatoes). Say that name ten times fast! I got some nice little red skinned new potatoes - washed them, popped them in a pan of cold water and then brought it to a boil. That's it, then they went right into the roasting pan with the chicken. Some white onions were boiled for five minutes and drained and added to the pan with the potatoes. Some pieces of slightly browned bacon were put on top of the potatoes and onions and it was ready to go! 90 minutes in the oven and it was ready to go.
The pictures below show the process and you can see how it turned out. I'd have liked it a bit better if I'd browned the skin a bit more but it wasn't a bad first attempt. Notice anything in the final result photo? Here's the how the finished product came out:
Can you tell what's wrong with this picture? I apparently need a chicken anatomy lesson -- its in the pan upside down! I didn't realize it until I started cutting it up to serve and there were a bunch of bones where the breast meat was supposed to be! **sigh** This wasn't a homerun on my first attempt but I'd say I got at least a base hit, maybe even a double. The flavor was great and it was nice and moist. The combination of chicken, bacon, and onions roasted together was a really nice combination.
Lessons learned: Get wooden spoons (without Elizabeth finding out), brown it a bit ore all the way around, consider taking the foil and lid off towards the end to brown it more if needed (Julia, you should try that), and most important -- don't put the bird in the pan upside down!
This dish is a meal by itself but I choose to make braised carrots with it as a side dish - separate post to follow. Now I'm ready for round two - watch out chickens, here I come with my mattress needle!
Bon Appetit!
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