Great Go-To Roasted Chicken Recipe

One of the most comforting foods during cold weather like this is a great roasted chicken. Flexible and easy to prepare, a braised chicken will make your house smell fantastic and will likely yield enough meat and vegetables for 2 full meals. There is one cooking in my oven right now and I just had to share the recipe, which is based on the Poulet Provencal recipe from the March 2008 issue of Gourmet magazine. The combination of tomatoes and olives lends a lovely richness to the dish, but for even more body, you can take my suggestion and throw in a few potatoes. As you can see, and as you will note in future posts, most of the recipe lists ingredients without measurements. That's just how I roll!

Poulet Russo (based on Gourmet magazine's Poulet Provencal)

- Take one regular sized roaster chicken (I like Bell & Evans), rinse and pat dry
- Rub with a mixture of herbs de provence, crushed garlic and olive oil
- Place in a large dutch oven

Mix togehter:
- 5 tomatoes (this time of year I use tomatoes on the vine), quartered
- 1/2 large yellow onion, cut into wedges (you can add more if you like onions)
- several small potatoes (I like organic buttercream potatoes) cut into quarters
- a handful or two of pitted kalamata olives
- sliced garlic to taste
- more herbs de provence (I like LOTS)
- olive oil, salt and pepper

Arrange vegetable mixture around the chicken. Roast at 425 until the chicken is done (I keep the lid on the dutch oven). The chicken I used took exactly one hour and 15 minutes to cook. It turned out really juicy and the vegetables were done perfectly.

Remove the chicken and the vegetables from the dutch oven, leaving the juice in the pan. Skim off the fat or use a fat separator, then simmer the juice for a few minutes until it reduces. Remove from heat and whisk in a tablespoon of butter. If you want to go really crazy and make me fall in love with you, use white truffle butter. Either way, you're done!

The nice thing about this recipe is that it can serve as the basis for any combination of herbs and vegetables. Carrots, parsnips, potatoes and fresh thyme and sage would probably be good. Maybe throw in some fresh green beans near the end.

Do you have a veg/herb combo to suggest? Speak up!