The Simplest Chicken Recipe Ever
1 roaster chicken
potatoes, washed and peeled, and cut into large chunks (at least 1potato per person)
garlic powder
oregano
salt
Put the potatoes in the bottom of your baking dish, which is preferably a deep but not necessarily large or wide glass dish or casserole. Rinse the chicken in the sink. If you're buying your chicken in the US, take out the bag of organs stuffed, aptly, in the chicken's body cavity.* Season it all over with the garlic powder, oregano, and salt, all to taste, but make sure to rub all of these well into the chicken's skin. Place the seasoned bird on top of the potatoes in your dish, and then bake it at 350-400F for about 1 hour, or until fully cooked.**
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*In the Canduci family, you don't throw the guts away, you save them and make something else out of them at a later time. Like gravy. But people tend to have strong feelings about organ meat, so I'm not going to try to sell them on anybody in this post.
**I don't buy into that BS about "until the chicken reaches 160F internally." A) Even if you have a meat thermometer, you have to be a meat thermometer pro not to stick it in some part of the relatively small chicken that is going to give you an inaccurate picture of how hot your chicken is. B) Meat (and most other things) continue cooking after they're removed from the source of heat (this is why you should run your hand under cool water for about 10 minutes after your burn it), so waiting until the chicken is, thermally speaking, "cooked" to remove it from the oven pretty much guarantees it will be over-cooked by the time you eat it, unless you're in the habit of plunging your chicken in an icewater bath immediately after you take it out of the oven. There is a better way than getting salmonella or taking your chicken on a polar bear swim. Cook the chicken at the oven temperature the recipe recommends for 30 minutes per pound of chicken. After that time, take it out, make a slice into the breast, and inspect the color of the meat and juice. If the meat is light pink or white and the juice is clear, your chicken is, for all practical purposes, done with its time in the oven. If the meat is dark pink, or if the juice is pink or bloody, put the chicken back in for at least another 15 minutes and then check it again. (More like 30 minutes if the meat is a pretty dark pink, and if it looks "rare", well, you've got 45 minutes looking at you between now and dinner. Sorry, just sayin'.) After it's done according to the above guidelines, remove it from the oven and let it sit out on the counter, covered in a little tinfoil tent for about 5-10 minutes. If you feel crafty you can even stick your meat thermometer in the appropriate place on the chicken (or leave it in there, if you were using it all along) and watch the temperature of the chicken continue to rise as it sits on the counter.
1 roaster chicken
potatoes, washed and peeled, and cut into large chunks (at least 1potato per person)
garlic powder
oregano
salt
Put the potatoes in the bottom of your baking dish, which is preferably a deep but not necessarily large or wide glass dish or casserole. Rinse the chicken in the sink. If you're buying your chicken in the US, take out the bag of organs stuffed, aptly, in the chicken's body cavity.* Season it all over with the garlic powder, oregano, and salt, all to taste, but make sure to rub all of these well into the chicken's skin. Place the seasoned bird on top of the potatoes in your dish, and then bake it at 350-400F for about 1 hour, or until fully cooked.**
__________
*In the Canduci family, you don't throw the guts away, you save them and make something else out of them at a later time. Like gravy. But people tend to have strong feelings about organ meat, so I'm not going to try to sell them on anybody in this post.
**I don't buy into that BS about "until the chicken reaches 160F internally." A) Even if you have a meat thermometer, you have to be a meat thermometer pro not to stick it in some part of the relatively small chicken that is going to give you an inaccurate picture of how hot your chicken is. B) Meat (and most other things) continue cooking after they're removed from the source of heat (this is why you should run your hand under cool water for about 10 minutes after your burn it), so waiting until the chicken is, thermally speaking, "cooked" to remove it from the oven pretty much guarantees it will be over-cooked by the time you eat it, unless you're in the habit of plunging your chicken in an icewater bath immediately after you take it out of the oven. There is a better way than getting salmonella or taking your chicken on a polar bear swim. Cook the chicken at the oven temperature the recipe recommends for 30 minutes per pound of chicken. After that time, take it out, make a slice into the breast, and inspect the color of the meat and juice. If the meat is light pink or white and the juice is clear, your chicken is, for all practical purposes, done with its time in the oven. If the meat is dark pink, or if the juice is pink or bloody, put the chicken back in for at least another 15 minutes and then check it again. (More like 30 minutes if the meat is a pretty dark pink, and if it looks "rare", well, you've got 45 minutes looking at you between now and dinner. Sorry, just sayin'.) After it's done according to the above guidelines, remove it from the oven and let it sit out on the counter, covered in a little tinfoil tent for about 5-10 minutes. If you feel crafty you can even stick your meat thermometer in the appropriate place on the chicken (or leave it in there, if you were using it all along) and watch the temperature of the chicken continue to rise as it sits on the counter.
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