Roasted Chicken

preheat oven to 500 * I suggest dropping this down to 425 -400. I looked at some other roasting recipes and found them to be in the 425 range.*

1 whole chicken, washed and giblets discarded
1 lemon halved
4 whole garlic cloves
4 tablespoons butter, cut into 4 pieces
kosher or course sea salt (important)
fresh ground pepper

place chicken, breast up, in a shallow roasting pan. Rub the inside cavity with a little course salt (about a tsp). stuff lemons, garlic and butter into cavity. Sprinkle about another teaspoon course salt over chicken, along with some fresh ground pepper.

Put in oven, legs first. Roast 10 minutes, then pull out and slide a spatula under chicken, to prevent sticking. Put it back in the oven for another 50 minutes.

If you want to, after the chicken is done, remove it from the pan, titling it so juices run into pan, then deglaze the pan with some wine and chicken stock.


If your kitchen is awesome like ours...be prepared with towels to wave at the smoke detector