How to Roast a Chicken, my version

Ingredients
Whole chicken
Olive oil
Salt and pepper
Herbs (I prefer parsley, turmeric, paprika)
2 carrots
2 celery
1 onion

Supplies
Cutting board and knife
Pan (I use a rectangular pyrex dish with 2 inch high sides)
Kitchen twine
Veggie scraper
Oven
I like a pair of helping hands

Directions
Start by roughly chopping the carrots, celery and onion. Place them in the bottom of your pan.

Cut a lemon as if into slices, but not all the way through so it stays in 1 piece. I find more juice gets into the chicken keeping it moist and flavorful, but without having stray lemon slices flopping all over the place.

Turn the oven to 350 degrees.  I like to do all my dishes at this point so that the sink is empty when I take the raw chicken out of its package.

 
This is the point where I call my husband for help--I do all the raw chicken parts, and he touches all the supplies to keep raw chicken germs from getting everywhere.*

Take out the giblets, and reserve in a container in the fridge for later. I will use them for a soup recipe with this chicken's carcass. Recipe to follow in a later post.

Rinse the chicken inside and out.

Pat the chicken dry with paper towels.

Loosen the skin from the meat of the bird.

Set the bird in the pan over the bed of veggies, and have helper pour olive oil into your hands. Rub the oil all over the bird outside and inside, getting under the skin.

Shake pepper and salt all over the bird, inside and out.
Stuff with the lemon--when I have it, I add a half head of garlic.

Cover with your favorite herbs and spices--I usually use parsley, paprika and turmeric. Sometimes I add basil and oregano if I want an Italian flavor, sometimes cumin and coriander if I want a more Middle Eastern flavor, cardamom and cinnamon if I want a more Indian flavor.

To help the bird cook more evenly, I like to truss it with kitchen twine. Wrap twine around one of the drumsticks, then the other, so that there is a "figure 8" shape between them.

 Pull tight to use them to close the whole in that part of the bird.

Wrap the twine around the sides of the chicken, tucking the wings in and bringing them to the stump where the head is. 

Tie it tight, and then tuck the head under it. Set it in the pan, legs pointed up *the opposite of my picture*.

Put it in the oven.
I usually bleach my sink and counters at this point, to remove contamination from handling raw meat.

Bake at 350 degrees for 2.5 hours for a smaller bird--if the skin gets too brown, tent some tinfoil over it.** The breast meat has to reach 170 degrees inside and the thigh meat has to reach 180 degrees inside to avoid food poisoning.  When poked, the juices will run clear--that is sometimes hard to tell depending on the herbs and spices.  Do not reuse knives or forks that you use to check the meat, you could spread bacteria from the raw meat to the later cooked bird and cause food poisoning.

Let the bird rest before carving.

Enjoy!

IF IN DOUBT, DO NOT EAT THE ROAST CHICKEN. Follow on to my next recipes for soup and other things, if you're worried.


*I like to put the chicken in a plastic bag when I buy that, and use that bag for the raw chicken garbage to try to keep from cross-contaminating my work surface. I cut open the chicken package while in the bag to keep my counters clean, and then keep the bag close for the paper towels.

**I know that most recipes call for a higher temperature, but I prefer the longer cooking time and lower temperature since in my experience, the meat stays moister and it cooks more evenly.  I welcome comments with other suggestions about cooking time and temperature!