Yeah, I was low-key last week. I have been busy with work, and lazy with my blogging. Today I am posting and it’s my Roasted Chicken and Pan Gravy recipes. Last weekend I made this, giving me several days of leftovers.
To make a good roast chicken, start with a good whole bird (around 5 lbs. is a good size). Other ingredients you will need for the chicken and gravy are: an orange (or other citrus), two cloves of fresh garlic, one small onion, olive oil, chicken stock/broth, white wine, and butter. Also, keep salt & pepper for seasoning and some flour for thickening, in reserve. I recommend your using a good roasting pan that you will be able to throw on the stove after baking to make your gravy.
Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.
Make sure your chicken is fully defrosted. Remove the packaging. Here’s the gross part – you will need to remove the gizzards and other stuff from the cavity. Some providers will have put them in a plastic pouch, but most don’t and so you’ll have to dig them out. You can fill the cavity with water to help. If you like organ meats, by all means, set aside and use later. If not, just toss in the garbage. It you have cats or dogs….if you cook them up, they love this stuff. After you’ve got the cavity cleaned out, rinse the whole chicken off, including the inside of the cavity. Set chicken in your roasting pan and pat dry with paper towels.
Hygiene note: with raw meats, WASH YOURS HANDS OFTEN. Never touch other foodstuffs with hands that handled raw meats as you can contaminate them. Also, clean works surfaces after handling raw meats and before using them for other prep work. A bleach solution is usually ideal to kill any bacteria.
Back to the chicken. You probably were wondering what the orange, garlic and onion were for. You are going to stuff them into the cavity of the chicken. Section the whole orange and onion (peeled, of course), and coarsely chop the garlic. Stuff the pieces into the cavity, as much as you can fit.
Pour a little olive oil over the chicken (you can use butter if you prefer). Rub it into the skin and get the whole chicken good and coated. Season the bird with salt and pepper, and maybe some garlic powder. Flip the chicken breast side down in the pan. Cover the pan with some foil and tent it up, keeping the steam inside while roasting.
Slide the chicken into the oven and close the door. Let roast for 30 minutes at 450. After 30 minutes, open oven and take the pan out. Pull the foil off and flip the chicken over so breast side is up now. You can re-season again, maybe pour a little olive oil over to re-coat. Put the chicken back in the over without the foil and lower the temperature to 375 degree. Cook for 45 minutes, then check to see if browning well. Also, insert a meat thermometer into a thick portion (breast works) and check the temp. A done chicken is 170-180 degrees. If you’ve hit that mark, but the skin isn’t brown enough, crank up the temp on the oven and cook for about 10 minutes more. If the temp wasn’t high enough, roast chicken for another 20-30 minutes and recheck.
Once the bird is cooked, pull it out of the oven. Have a plate or pan ready to set the chicken in to rest while you make the gravy. Move the chicken to the resting plate, and cover with the foil you used earlier to keep it warm.
Now you can use the drippings to make the gravy. Put the roasting pan on the stove (probably will take up two burners) and set the burners at a very low heat. Add some white wine (bubbly works well too) to deglaze the pan. You don’t need much – a quarter to half cup. Using a whisk, loosen the bits stuck to the pan. Once it’s starting to cook down, pour in 2-3 cups of stock/broth (depends on how much gravy you want!). You might want to crank up the heat just a little at this point.
Keep whisking the liquid in the pan and cook to reduce and concentrate flavors. After about 5 minutes, this would be the time to start thickening. I use a flour sifter to add the flour to the gravy. Just sift a little bit of flour into gravy and whisk around. Let it cook a little and keep adding flour slowly until it starts thickening. Taste to see where you’re at flavor-wise. Season to taste with salt and pepper (you can probably get by with very little to no salt – but that’s your call). Once the gravy has gotten to the consistency you want, turn the heat off. Pour the gravy into a gravy boat (or whatever works for you for serving – I use a pyrex measuring cup!).
You can cut up you chicken, or pull it apart, or however you want to serve it now. I tend to pull off the legs and cut off some breast meat….and of course, get as much of that delicious roasted skin as I can, and put it on a plate, then pour on some gravy. Side dishes are up to you and to your taste.
Once you’re done with dinner, you can pull the rest of the chicken off the carcass (once it’s cooled down) and put them in some containers for leftovers. Yum! Save the gravy too! It tastes even better the next day. You use the leftovers to make open faced sandwiches the next day.
Enjoy your roast chicken!
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