How To: Roast a Chicken
To create our glaze/basting liquid, combine 1 cup orange juice, 1/2 cup honey, 3 cloves chopped garlic, and generous tablespoons of cumin and paprika.
Heat the ingredients in a saucepan over medium heat until the honey has dissolved.
While the liquid is simmering, prepare your vegetables - any root vegetables will do. We used onions, carrots and beets.
Chop the vegetables into large pieces and layer them in the bottom of your roasting pan.
Place a grate (if you have one) over the top of the veggies. If you haven\'t turned the heat off underneath your glaze, do so.
Unpack your fresh chicken. Lay it out on a cutting board or a piece of butcher paper.
Rub the chicken all over with olive oil. Remember to wash your hands!
After you\'ve rubbed down the chicken, pour the glaze over the top. Put the chicken in the oven at 400 degrees. Turn the roasting pan back-to-front and baste well every 10 minutes. This picture is after 20 minutes.
Be sure to baste WELL - not only will you have a juicier bird, but the honey in the glaze will start to caramelize on the skin of the chicken. Don\'t worry about some burned spots on the top - just be sure to baste them well.
After approximately 50 minutes - 1 hour, depending on your chicken, it should be done. Use an instant-read thermometer to check the temperature - we\'re happy if it\'s over 155. Carve it however you like, serve the vegetables on the side and enjoy!
Roast chicken is the perfect fall dish - It's hearty, it warms up the kitchen and it uses only root vegetables that can be stored in your fridge for months. It's a great dish for a workday evening because there actually isn't very much effort involved - your oven does most of the work. Roasting a chicken is one of the easiest things that you can do in the kitchen, and somehow it's been turned into a complicated and magical process by cooking magazines and recipe books. Follow the pictures (the instructions are in the captions) and you'll be set to roast a great bird.
One note - We like to put a mixture of beets, onions and carrots underneath our chicken. This means that we get to eat tasty beets, and our basting liquid is sweet and flavorful. It also makes us look like vampires who baste our chickens in blood. Trust us - it's just beet juice.
