Thursday, June 11, 2009

Roasted Garlic and Lemon Chicken

I have now accomplished something that has been on my "to cook" list for quite some time: I roasted a whole chicken.  I realize that this is something that anyone can do, and most everyone has done before, but for me, this was quite a feat.

As many of you know, I hate raw meat.  Raw chicken in particular just makes me want to dry heave.  So how in the world I reached in that cavity and pulled out those giblets, I have no idea.  I felt like I was on Fear Factor.  I took deep breaths, reached in there, had no idea what kind of organs I was pulling out, and disposed of them in record time.  I tried not to look.  It was one of the grossest things I have ever done.  It made me seriously consider vegetarianism.

Then I had to salt and pepper the inside and outside, and cram lemon wedges, a whole head of garlic with the top cut off, and a fistful of fresh thyme up inside the bird.  I was supposed to tie the legs together with kitchen twine, but I didn't have any, so I briefly considered using a twisty tie before saying "forget it."  I was also supposed to tuck the wings up under the bird, but I felt like I was manhandling it, and I didn't want to hear any joints crack or pop, so I didn't do that either.  I brushed the whole thing with butter then put it in the oven.

Do you see that flap on the left? Was I supposed to cut that off?  I don't even want to know what it is.

An hour later, I used my (sad, neglected) meat thermometer and saw that the chicken needed to cook longer, so I let it go for another half hour, at which time, it came out slightly overdone.

I covered it with foil and let it rest for about ten minutes while I prepared the rest of the meal (I'll tell you about that soon.)

The chicken was tender and juicy and overall really good.  I was very proud of myself.  Now, I don't think it was better than the grocery store rotisserie chicken (which is about the same price, maybe less) so I think I'm going to check "bake a chicken" off my list and never worry about giblets again!

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