Recipe: Lemon and Garlic Roasted Chicken

Looking for an extra special meal to make for Valentine's Day dinner last week, I found this one from Ina Garten of The Food Network. Although this recipe sounds a little complicated with all the ingredients, I found it was actually quite simple and the results were a deliciously juicy and different presentation for a Miller Farms Amish Hen purchased at Manchester Market. I also liked that once it went into the oven, it was very much hands-off until the last 15 minutes. The chicken paired well with the Chardonnay suggested at the end of the recipe (which I had to open in order to make the gravy, anyway ... so it wasn't wasted).

This would make an equally good every-day family chicken dinner, a company meal, or as a special occasion feast. Enjoy it with a simple salad. You won't want anything more; you will just keep nibbling on pieces of chicken from the carcass. Trust me--I couldn't even finish the dessert I made, which was a lot more work to make than the dinner itself!

Ingredients
1 (4 to 5 pound) roasting chicken
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 lemons
1 whole head garlic, cut in 1/2 crosswise
Good olive oil
2 Spanish onions, peeled and thickly sliced
1/2 cup dry white wine
1/2 cup chicken stock, preferably homemade
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour

Directions: Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.

Remove the chicken giblets. Rinse the chicken inside and out. Liberally salt and pepper the inside of the chicken. Cut the lemons in quarters, place 2 quarters in the chicken along with the garlic and reserve the rest of the lemons. Brush the outside of the chicken with olive oil and sprinkle the chicken liberally with salt and pepper. Tuck the wing tips under the body of the chicken. Place the chicken in a small (11 by 14-inch) roasting pan. (I used a small roasting pan with a lid.) Place the reserved lemons and the sliced onions in a large bowl and toss with 2 tablespoons of olive oil, 1 teaspoon of salt, and 1/2 teaspoon of pepper. Pour the mixture around the chicken in the pan.

Roast the chicken for about 1 hour and 15 minutes, until the juices run clear when you cut between a leg and a thigh. Remove the chicken to a platter, cover with aluminum foil, and allow to rest for 10 minutes while you prepare the sauce, leaving the lemons and onions in the pan.

Place the pan on top of the stove and turn the heat to medium-high. Add the wine and stir with a wooden spoon to scrape up the brown bits. Add the stock and sprinkle on the flour, stirring constantly for a minute, until the sauce thickens. Add any juices that collect under the chicken. Carve the chicken onto a platter and serve with the lemons, onions, and warm sauce.

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by Marsha Chartrand

Marsha Johnson Chartrand, a founder, writer, and copy editor with the Manchester Mirror, is a 50-year resident of Manchester. She has a long history of volunteer and community involvement.