Wednesday, January 31, 2007

How To Stretch a Chicken - Part I



I'm back on my "leftovers" theme again. What can I say? I work and don't always have time to cook when I get home at night.

I bought an organic chicken and decided to do something simple for a change. I had some lemons from a friend's tree, and some tarragon in my garden, so it was going to be roast lemon-tarragon chicken.

I washed the chicken thoroughly, patted it dry, and rubbed about a tablespoon of kosher salt inside and out. I then ground some fresh pepper. After squeezing one half lemon (which gave me 1/4 cup of juice), I lifted the skin of the chicken and poured a little juice in there, put tarragon leaves and slices of lemon between the skin and the breast. Another whole lemon, poked many times with a toothpick went into the cavity of the bird along with the rest of the juice. I had the oven heated to 350, and I put the bird in after dotting the top with some Earth Balance. (Butter works, of course, but I only eat that on occasion.)

Meanwhile, I washed and quartered some red potatoes and added them along with some organic baby carrots - halved.

Dinner was ready in about an hour and fifteen minutes. My friend Jeff came over and we had that time to relax with a glass of Fat Cat Pinot Noir before enjoying this simple, delicious meal.

Tomorrow, we will go into Phase II of the Chicken Saga. Photos will be posted this eve. when I get home from work!

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3 comments:

Chris said...

Sounds great, Toni! I love the idea of putting the lemons inside the bird. Hmmm...food for thought! Can't wait for Part 2!

Toni said...

It's an idea I got from a Marcella Hazan cookbook some time back. I can't remember which one.

Julia said...

Oooh, my favourite subject - roast chicken!