Days of Shades

Today I have decided to teach you how to make my most favoritest roast chicken recipe in the whole world. I learned from my mom, but I believe she got it from the Silver Palette Cookbook, which has all sorts of wonderful tasty things.

Preheat your oven to 425 and coarsely chop 4 yellow onions. Stick 'em in your chicken-roasting pan (I use a big enamel dutch oven).

Mix 2 Tablespoons of ground ginger, 2 tablespoons of ground mustard, and a bit of salt and pepper (black pepper is perfectly tasty, but if you happen to live with my boyfriend he'll look over your shoulder and say "Is this for company? You should have used white pepper" because apparently people can't handle black specks in their food. IT'S JUST PEPPER, guys!).

Get out your whole chicken. Now, some of you may not have cooked a whole bird before, or may think it's ickier when you can see what the animal looked like. Dive in the deep end! You always knew it was a chicken. There it is! With its little pathetic wings and everything! You're an omnivore -- own it! (Unless you're a vegetarian, in which case why are you reading my chicken recipe? It says 'chicken' right at the top!)

Guess what? INSIDE THE CHICKEN THERE IS A PRIZE! Reach deep into the cavity of the chicken and pull it out to see what you've won. There should be a neck, a liver, a heart, and lungs or gizzards or something -- unless you bought a chicken like mine, which said "Some giblets may be missing", which is infuriating because I paid for a whole chicken not a chicken kit, and also because this is the second time the HEART has been missing. Either they're breeding heartless chickens or Bill Cosby was right.

Anyway. Following my mom's instructions, put the liver in a small Tupperware, cover it with milk, and store it in the freezer. Once it's frozen you'll have three options -- throw it away, mail it to my mother (address available on request), or make pate. I believe the latter is what mom does because mailing it to herself would be silly.

Give the chicken a quick shower, and towel him dry. See how nice we are to our fine no-longer-feathered friends? Squeeze the juice of one lemon over the skin and inside the cavity, then sprinkle/rub the spice mixture into it. If you're feeling remorse over being part of the chicken's demise you can pretend you're giving it a little massage.

I recommend trying to sprinkle the spice or roll the chicken in it first, because pretty quickly you'll end up rubbing more spice on than you rub off. You'll probably have to hand apply some of it, though, to get it inside the cavity and under the little chicken arm-pits. Let the sting of the lemon juice in the tiny cuts on your hands (You have them, you just didn't realize it until you bathed them in lemon juice) wash away the remainder of your accessory-to-chicken-murder guilt (if you're catholic) or wash it off (if you're anyone else).

Now you're ready to roast the chicken! When roasting a chicken, the carcass should be breast up. If you're like my mother and can't remember which end of the chicken is which, try her technique -- grab its sides, stand it on its little legs, and run it around the kitchen counter.

Actually, do that anyway. It's hilarious.

Once you've done a few laps, lay your chicken gently to rest in the pan, as if he's doing a little back stroke on the onions, and slip it into the oven. Set a timer for 30 minutes.

In a saucepan, bring 2 3/4 cups chicken broth to a boil and throw in 2 more chopped onions and the weird bits you found inside the chicken. Let that simmer for 20-30 minutes.

When the timer goes, stop playing video games and go baste your chicken. NO, don't wait for one more turn/save-point/cut scene; that chicken is depending on you! Turn the oven down to 375. Baste the chicken with the pan juices (if there are any) and with about half a cup of stock from the pan on the stove.

Set the timer for another 30 minutes. Don't go back to your video game and/or livejournal entry, because if you do you won't remember to baste, and you should do that several times in the next half hour.

When the timer goes, strain all the liquid from the saucepan onto your poor parched chicken, then set the buzzer for another 25 minutes. This would be a good time to think about whether you're going to eat anything else, like vegetables, or whether you're just going to tear into a chicken and onions, which would be weird. At least make some potatoes, for Freddy's sake. Jeez.

After 25 minutes baste again, then put a lid on the chicken and set the timer for 20 minutes. This is the home stretch! You and the chicken have made it through an hour and 25 minutes of cooking, and the end is in sight!

This isn't really a chicken made to be carved -- it's more a 'poke it and hope bits fall off' kind of chicken. Serve it in a bowl. When you're ready to eat, there are two options for dealing with that mess of onions that's left. You can fish out the icky-chicken-bits and serve them with all the juice left over at the bottom of the pan, or you can strain out the onions and make gravy with the juice and the icky chicken bits. I love gravy, and I also like using all of the bird Including the heart, foster farms! Stop selling me heartless chickens!, so I go that route. Make a roux by mixing flour into melted butter, add it to the juice, and blend it all up (immersion blenders are awesome). Add a slosh of wine, and you're good to go.

Mmmmm. Chicken.