To celebrate the first day of my last year of college I decided to roast a chicken. It was completely new territory for me. This might be a bit of a silly story to anyone who has prepared countless Thanksgiving turkeys and roasted chickens for Sunday dinners, but it was a big deal for me.
The decision to roast this chicken might have had a lot to do with the fact that it was two days past its “use by” date (since I’d bought it a week earlier and had been carefully avoiding trying to figure out how to cook it) and was taking up a huge amount of space in a fridge that suddenly had to fit five different people’s food (welcome back, housemates!) and just a little bit to do with the fact that I wanted to celebrate classes starting up again. Either way, it ended up being a good decision.
Let’s go back to the grocery store aisle on that fateful day when my housemate and friend Wing and I decided to purchase an entire chicken. For the first time ever. After a summer of cooking and eating together nearly every day, Wing and I are very efficient grocery shoppers. We make lists and menus and plans and breeze through the store, rarely distracted and only occasionally giving in to temptations like pints of Häagen-Dazs on sale (you have to try their rum raisin ice cream, it is one of the most delicious things I have ever tasted. The combination of rum, raisins, and sweet creamy ice cream is THE BEST). But before checking out, we inevitably end up standing in front of the meat section for a long time. A very long time. I’m not sure what it is about meat that makes it so difficult for us to buy–is it the price? the wide variety of choices? or its unappealing bloody rawness? (I think it’s mostly that last one for me.) We discuss which cuts of chicken to buy (boneless? skinless? thighs or drumsticks?), whether we should go with the free-range, organic variety since it is on sale this week, and how many we should buy, since single pieces of frozen chicken tend to get lost in our black-hole of a freezer, which doesn’t do anyone much good. And that’s just for the chicken section. If we can make a chicken decision within ten minutes we usually just run away as quickly as we can, completely avoiding the red meat.
Anyway, one day as we stood in our regular place contemplating our chicken choices, something possessed me and I reached for a whole chicken. It was an organic, free-range chicken on sale for an excellent price. I couldn’t resist, even though I’d never prepared or roasted an entire bird in my life. It seemed like a time-consuming, challenging task, especially when it’s so easy to buy an already roasted and seasoned rotisserie chicken from the deli. But for some reason I decided right then that I had to roast that chicken. Why not? It can’t be THAT hard, I thought.
Unfortunately my enthusiasm for roasting a chicken pretty much died as soon as the bird was safely stored in the refrigerator. It once again seemed an insurmountable and much too time-consuming task. I half-heartedly flipped through my trusty Betty Crocker cookbook to see how to go about preparing the bird and was dismayed to see the 2 hour estimated roasting time for a 5 pound chicken. So the poor chicken sat for several more days. Until Wing pointed out to me that the use-by date was yesterday. Under the threat of soon having a rotting chicken on my hands (and in my fridge), I did what I always do at times like this: I called my mom. She is my savior in these situations, and once again she came to the rescue. We talked through the process of seasoning and roasting a chicken and I was suddenly inspired and brave enough to attempt it. It’s really pretty simple.
Once again, my status as a college student lacking exactly appropriate cooking equipment did not hinder the recipe. In my house of five college students none of us owns a roasting pan or rack. Substitution: a 9″ x 13″ cake pan and no rack. It worked quite well. I slightly adapted a recipe from my mom and relied heavily on the results of the Google search “how to roast a chicken.” I also overcame my intense dislike of handling raw meat to prepare the chicken–reaching inside to pull out the giblets and thoroughly rubbing the seasonings into the chicken with my bare hands. It really doesn’t take long to prepare the chicken, then all you have to do is roast it for a couple of hours. You can use that time to prepare side dishes or start your homework from the first day of class :)
It was all worth it, the chicken turned out really well and it was an excellent meal to share with friends. Now you too can roast a chicken.
P.S. Sorry for the delay in posting, but now that classes have started again I hope to post about once a week.
Roasted Chicken
Recipe adapted from Mr. Food Cooks Chicken
Adjust amounts depending on the size of your chicken. My chicken was close to 5 pounds and the recipe below was just right.
1 1/2 -2 tsp paprika
1 1/2 -2 tsp garlic powder
1 1/2 -2 tsp salt
1/2 – 1 tsp pepper
1/2 – 1 tsp seasoned salt
4 tsp vegetable oil
1 whole chicken (about 4 pounds)
Preheat the oven to 375°. In a small bowl, mix together all the spices and oil.
Place the chicken in a roasting pan (or 9″ x 13″ sheet cake pan and on a roasting rack if you have one) and rub the seasoning mixture all over the chicken until it is well coated.
Bake, uncovered, for 1 1/2 – 1 3/4 hours, or until the chicken is done (165° on a meat thermometer inserted into the breast) and the skin is crispy. This site has a table of roasting times based on weight and some other useful tips. Baste every 20-30 minutes with a pastry brush if desired. (I didn’t baste since I don’t own a pastry brush either and it still turned out quite well, with a nice crispy, flavorful skin.)
Much Ado About Pie 