Every Saturday morning my hubby and I wake up and begin the great discussion of "what do we cook for dinner tonight?" We forgo the crowds and "scenes" that Saturday night restaurants seem to offer in favor of cooking a meal we want, the way we like it, and with each other's company. And let's be honest, cooking in the kitchen can be very romantic!
So this Saturday the discussion began with my husband saying he wanted to cook a whole chicken. It brought back memories of the first time my husband verbally delivered this proposition -- great idea! -- which is quickly followed by the memory of cutting into a half cooked chicken. I think we ordered pizza that night. It was a rookie mistake -- we were young and newly married with grand ideas in our head.
I have since learned that it is always best to have a solid game plan and recipes to fall back on incase things go poorly. So we started with roasted chicken. Great! What else? We soon found a recipe for baked chicken with garlic and shallots (
http://www.finecooking.com/recipes/baked_chicken_herbs_and_shallots.aspx).
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| Photo source: FineCooking.com |
We have recently learned about cooking with shallots and the stinky process it can be! My brave hubby will cry like a baby when cutting onions while I'm a pro -- the first time cutting up shallots about brought me to my knees! The reason why onions make you cry is the bulb in the center which looks a lot like a shallot to me. So if you want to avoid crying while cutting onions take out the bulb. If you want to cut up shallots without crying -- be brave!
In all seriousness you could probably substitute the shallots for one large while onion. This recipe also calls for rosemary which we are not huge fans of so we left it out.
Instead we opted for a unique ingredient for our chicken - flavor infused olive oil. As with most Saturdays we got out to run our errands and after having lunch ran upon this lovely store in Allen: Oil & Vinegar (
http://oilandvinegarusa.com/). We stopped in for inspiration and were not disappointed. We left with a bottle of their extra virgin olive oil with Tuscan herbs which would be great to dip a nice French bread in, or, in our case, coat the outside of our chicken.
By coating the outside of our chicken with the olive oil, which you can use any type of olive oil you'd like as long as it goes with the flavor palate, the oil will crisp up the skin and keep things moist.
To start we followed the recipe listed above with putting butter in a skillet to melt. Once melted we added the diced shallots and gloves of garlic (don't chop up the garlic, but it does need to be peeled. Once the shallots become tender it's ready to be added to the potatoes.
So while the shallots and garlic are cooking in a skillet chop up some potatoes - quarter them. We love to use fingerling potatoes - especially the ones that are a variety of color. I find that fingerling potatoes, which are smaller than even red potatoes, have a lot of flavor and also cook quicker! Looking for a quick cooking potato? Fingerling potatoes!
Taking the thawed (make sure it's not frozen!) whole chicken you need to pat it dry with paper towels and take out the goodies inside (save them for chicken broth if you wish), and coat the chicken with olive oil and any seasons you'd like. We threw on some Italian spices, salt, and pepper. This can all be done on a cutting board while cooking shallots and garlic.
Take your potatoes and arrange them on the bottom on your roasting pan - just make sure it's oven safe! Once the potatoes are spread evenly in one layer on the bottom of your roasting pan take the shallot and garlic mixture and pour it over the potatoes. Side note: if you want to season the potatoes in olive oil and other seasons go for it, but realize the shallot and garlic mixture will provide plenty of flavor!
The chicken is ready to be roasted!
Now, take your prepared chicken and place it on top of the potatoes. Make sure your oven is set to roast (or 350 degrees) and here is the formula for how long to roast the chicken: 20 minutes per pound plus 15. In all honestly, we probably could have skipped the last 15 min in favor of a more juicy chicken -- this will need further testing!
So we put the chicken in and forget about it -- not really -- the smell is sooooo good! You can't help but find yourself staring at it while it cooks!
Let's move onto a side dish we decided to throw with the chicken.
When the chicken was about 20 minutes away from being done we prepared the asparagus. First chop off the bottoms and then steam them. It really is an art to cook asparagus and the hubby gets better and better at it every time!
We have a special asparagus steamer we got as a wedding gift. Wish we could say we use it for more items, but we really don't. Just a veggie steamer will do to cook asparagus.
But I wanted something to flavor the asparagus -- and I found this sauce: Balsamic Glaze (
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/balsamic-glaze/). It is really simple and was my first go at it so I think there are some improvements to make. It's a 1 to 0.25 ratio of balsamic vinegar (and I have a favorite one I use from Costco) to brown sugar. My brown sugar is getting a little dry and needs replacing so I opted for the local honey we picked up at the grocery store the other weekend. Same ratio. Heat it till your sugary substances dissolves -- I probably should have let it cook down a bit more, but once my dear hubby set off the fire alarm with the fumes of the balsamic so we went easy. Here's a picture of what it looked like cooking the glaze -- pretty!
Balsamic Glaze - psychedelic!
The glaze was a little more viscous (runny) that I'd like, but tasted so good with the veggies. When every thing was done cooking, we cut up the chicken and plated all the goods. Here's the final presentation:
The meal finally plated!
I have to say that every thing was good, but the potatoes took the cake! I mean I'm an Irish girl and all, but the potatoes with the garlic and shallots were so savory! The chicken was tender and very flavorful. Our pups would not leave us alone the entire meal begging for table scraps.
What is great is with two people and whole chicken you have left overs and the options are endless on what to do with the chicken. The next night, Sunday, we had some left over potatoes with it and just threw in a can of baked beans for a simple meal.
Ideas of left over chicken: salad topper, sandwich meat, even slather it in BBQ sauce! The flavor of the chicken allows for it to be reused easily into other dishes with slightly different flavors.
So here's the shopping list:
One whole chicken (as big or as small as you wish) -- thaw it!
A bag of fingerling potatoes (you'll want enough that when quartered will cover one layer of a roasting pan).
Two to three shallots -- we go easy on these because they are powerful.
Two to three garlic cloves -- although we tend to use more than that because we love garlic.
Olive oil of your choice (fancy or just Extra Virgin Olive Oil)
Italian seasoning or spices of your liking.
Butter
For the side dish of asparagus:
Fresh asparagus - the bigger in diameter the better.
Baslamic vinegar - Costco sells some that is my favorite, but any brand will do.
Honey or brown sugar.
This roasted chicken with garlic and potatoes looks easier than it sounds and is so delicious! Give it a try and leave me comments or suggestions of how to improve it. I'm always improve recipes. Bon appetite y'all!
Garlic Roasted Chicken and fingerling Potatoes
From the kitchen of Chateau de Savoy!
