A couple of Saturday’s ago it was one of those mid-spring transition days in St. Louis. It was raining and it was a bit cool and I really had no plans for the day, which was a bit unusual. I was having a bit of a blah day, and I know for a lot of people, that means curling up with a book, watching a good movie, or taking a long nap; but for me it means fixing a good meal. And when it’s a gray day like that I default to comfort food–something that tastes good, but also has your house smelling so good you can hardly wait until it’s ready to devour. On this day, I decided I would do roasted chicken with vegetables. To accompany the chicken I fried some okra, made some skillet corn and baked a cake (from scratch). Yeah, you could say I was having a blah day.
Comfort food is just that. It makes you feel better. It warms your soul. It makes you FAT! Did I just say that? Yes. It’s true, this is NOT a low calorie meal. So take this as your warning, DO NOT make this sort of meal every night and eat it. If you do, I promise, you will be buying yourself a new wardrobe and not in a smaller size. Amazing how that happens. Anyway, I felt the need to give you the warning. What you do with it is on you. Brace yourself for the butter!
I honestly cannot give you any measurements for this recipe, so stay with me. I start with a whole chicken. Whole chickens are inexpensive, however they make a wonderful presentation. The first thing you need is 2 sticks of butter at room temperature. If you don’t have time for that, gradually defrost them a bit in the microwave. Be careful, because you don’t want melted butter. Put your butter in to a small bowl and mash it up until it’s fairly soft. Next you will want to add your seasonings to this butter. I do not have a set list of seasonings I use. For this particular meal I chose fresh ground black pepper, sea salt, some garlic powder, and some beer can chicken seasoning I had stuck back in the pantry. Add all the seasonings and continue to mash the butter with your fork to get all of them incorporated into the butter.
Go ahead and preheat your oven to 500 degrees. No, that’s not a mistake. You will understand why in a minute. It’s time to get your chicken ready for this butter mixture you have created. The first thing I do it wash my chicken off. I’m just kind of weird about chicken, so I do that each time with any chicken I’m cooking. Make sure you dry your chicken well otherwise you will not be able to coat it good with the butter. After you’ve dried the chicken put it in your roasting pan breast side up and tuck the wings in underneath. If you prefer, you can put it on a roasting rack in the pan. I have done that before, but I didn’t this time, and it really doesn’t make much difference. I like to cut up a clove of garlic and in random parts of the chicken I’ll just cut a little slit in the skin and insert a piece of the garlic underneath. It might take 2 cloves depending on how much you like. Here comes the fun part. You are going to slather this entire chicken with this butter mixture you made. Spread it on good. This butter mixture is going to give it a wonderful flavor, but it is also going to create a bit of a crust on the outside.
You will have a bit of the butter mixture left over and, no, we will not waste it! Drop the leftover butter into the pan. Before you add the vegetables, stick the chicken in the 500 degree oven. I do this to melt the butter, but a short blast of this high temp setting creates the crust I was speaking about earlier. You don’t want brown butter so, to keep it from burning, remove the chicken once the butter is melted. While the butter is still sizzling, I like to add some fresh chopped garlic and some flour. Stir the flour around in the butter and garlic mixture until it’s mixed well. Once that’s done, I like to add about a 1/4 to a 1/3 cup of white wine. Whatever you have around the house is fine, or you can just use a white cooking wine. This will give this meal an amazing flavor. Be sure turn your oven down to 350 degrees for the actual baking temperature.
Now its time to start layering your vegetables. For this particular meal, I used carrots, sliced portabella mushrooms, yellow potatoes, and whole frozen green beans. And I just start layering them in the roasting pan. I have no system, so it doesn’t matter which vegetable you put in first with the exception of the green beans. I don’t let them cook as long as the other vegetables, because they can become soggy, and that’s not good. Make sure you season the vegetables. I just use some sea salt, fresh cracked black pepper, and garlic powder. It should look a bit like this when you’re ready for it to go in the oven.
Put your meat thermometer in and you’re ready to bake. I like to let mine cook for about 30-45 minutes before I add enough water to cover the vegetables. The reason for waiting is that I like for the vegetables to roast just a bit prior to adding water; which, by the way, is going to make the most awesome gravy. All total, and depending on your oven, you’re going to be cooking this meal about 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Once you add your water, continue to cook until you feel the potatoes starting to become a bit soft. That is when I add the green beans. Don’t forget to season the green beans with the sea salt, fresh cracked pepper and garlic powder. Hey, I like my seasonings! You can already see how delicious this looks!
You’re going to let these cook until the internal temperature on the meat thermometer reaches about 165-175. It’s really okay if the thermometer has reached that temp when you add the green beans because they won’t take long to cook. By now your house is smelling mighty good from all the wonderful flavors coming from your oven–and now this one pot meal is done! You will not believe the beautiful presentation this meal makes. It’s truly the only centerpiece you need. And, although on this particular night I made a couple of additional sides to go with this dish, all you need is bread. Once you get it all on your serving dish, just let it sit for about 5 minutes or so before you slice into the chicken. That will give it time to rest and retain all of those great seasonings that make it so wonderfully juicy. Take a look at this beautiful meal.
Now, ladle up some of that scrumptious gravy and pour it all over the chicken and dig in!
As most of you know by now, I hardly ever prepare a meal that I don’t think about my Granny. As I was feeling kind of blah on this day and wanted comfort food to make me feel better I couldn’t help but think, did Granny ever have a blah day? And then I started thinking, what would her go-to comfort food have been? She literally made comfort food everyday! I found comfort in her food for sure, but of course back in those days I didn’t really have an appreciation of her wonderful, made-from-scratch meals. I mostly just found comfort in Granny. Food makes us happy, I know, but really it’s the people that we share the food with that give us comfort and joy. One of my greatest pleasures in life is fixing a meal and having people come over and sit around my table and eat it, sharing laughs and stories and heartaches. That’s comfort for me. I think that was comfort for my Granny, too. In fact I know it was. I now can look at this from a whole new perspective. You cook the food with the intention of finding comfort, but the comfort comes from spending time with those you love. I encourage you to find comfort in that this week! Love the people around you! Perhaps with a one-pot roasted chicken dinner.
Much love!
Sandi
Southern Savorings 