Woo, our second Food Friday post! When I first pitched this idea to Romain, he instantly suggested we do a post on a whole roasted chicken. This is a recipe that he’s been working on for years and it’s a Gremaud household favorite. It’s the most comforting, homey dinner and the smell fills the whole house. Such a delight!

Here are the main players:

A whole chicken

Whatever veggies you want/have in your kitchen- we like carrots, onions, garlic and mushrooms

Butter and canola oil

Dijon Mustard

A little white wine – for cooking and drinking 😉

 

Preheat oven to 425.

First you “spatchcock” the chicken, which means you take out the backbone (you can buy it this way too). Then you can lay it down flat, breast side down to get more crispy skin (because that’s the real star of this dish).

We like to make a stock with the unused parts of the chicken (gizzard, backbone and other scraps) with some water, veggie scraps (even the peels), and some aromatics (bay leaf, garlic, whatever else you have in the kitchen). We then strain and use the stock to make the rice for this dinner, or you can save it for another recipe!

Romain cooks the liver in butter in the pan – it’s his favorite.

Season the chicken liberally with salt, pepper and paprika. Roughly chop your vegetables, making sure to give your doggo a carrot.

Heat a little canola oil in a cast iron pan, wait until it’s hot and then add the chicken, skin side down. Add a little butter for good measure and put something heavy on top. Some people use bricks wrapped in aluminum foil or another heavy pan. We use another cast iron. This makes the skin extra crispy.

Cook for about 4-5 minutes and then remove the chicken. Deglaze the pan with a little white wine to get all those good crispy bits up and add a little mustard and stir around.

Add the veggies, season and cook for about 5 minutes. Add the chicken back on top of the veggies in the pan and then put it in the oven. Should take roughly 30-45 minutes depending on the size of the chicken, but make sure the internal temp is at 165 in the thickest part of the breast.

And there you have it! We serve it with rice but it’s great with potatoes too!