Foolproof Roast Chicken

Is your mouth watering yet?  I know mine is.

Roast chicken is one of those things that is incredibly impressive and impossibly easy.  It mostly just requires that you give it tons of love, care and time.  The only trick I have with this: high heat and clean oven.

This recipe is super tweakable.

Foolproof Roast Chicken

(List of ingredients are on the fly – use what you have, don’t use what you don’t.)

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees F (on the roast setting, if possible.)

Clean your chicken. Yes, yuck. Yuck, yuck, yuck.  This may mean taking off its neck, taking out some organs, trimming the flappy skin off, cleaning out the inside of the carcass.  Yes, I will admit it, I’m a wimp and I wore gloves. Yuck, yuck, yuck.

Put your chicken into a baking dish.  Rub your chicken down with room-temperature butter.  Similarly, you could give it a nice douse of olive oil – but butter tastes better.

Salt and pepper generously on both sides of the chicken.

This is where you can get creative.  What do you want to stuff your chicken with?  I like a few chunks of butter, a cut up onion, a bundle of fresh herbs (thyme or something else peppery and savory) and maybe half a lemon, sliced.

Vegetable Soufflé with Chicken Zucchini Salad

That’s it.  I’m convinced.  Soufflés have to the best and easiest answer to spicing up dinner for anyone. 

I’m a big fan of eating anything that has been fluffed up with egg whites and air. Mmm, mmm.  Makes meals that much fun! Bring on the soufflés. 

This soufflé was plate-licking good, and packed only with fabulous, fresh ingredients.  And check this – I did it without buying a single ramekin.  Investing in ramekins would allow my soufflé to get more height, however, for just a simple Tuesday night dinner, a semi-high, super scrumptious soufflé served me just fine.