My Favorite Roast Chicken

When I roast chicken I generally roast 2 or 3 at a time.  Roast chicken meat is just a good thing to have on hand; you can put it in soups or pasta or fried rice.  You can chop it up for tacos, or slice it for sandwiches.  You might as well just go ahead and go ahead.

I like to buy my chickens at a Mexican Grocery in our neighborhood.  The nice butchers in this store take the chickens out of the wet stuff and clean them up some, and then put them on clean, dry styrofoam plates.  Isn't that nice? So I always get them there  unless I'm in Mexico and then I just like them to be put whole into a plastic bag, knowing that the chickens I buy down there were walking around the day before! OMG, the flavor of those chickens!!!  However, lacking that, I like them ready-to-roast.  Also, at this little store, the chickens are small and young, not big ol' pig-birds.  I like them little and not covered with 2lbs. of fat.

I take those little chickens and put a lemon (or a tangerine, orange, apple or onion) in them, but first I stab the lemon several times so the juices cook out.  Then I roll the lemon in herbs and salt; sometimes different ones, parsley, thyme, tarragon or sage.  My herb garden is pretty puny at the moment so I used something I buy called Garlic with Herbs, also dried parsley and poultry seasoning.  Stuff the lemon where the sun don't shine and then tie up their little legs.  This is where I keep my twine.  Thanks, Martha.

Use the bowl with the herbs and salt that you dipped your lemons in, and add olive oil, lemon juice, and honey or agave syrup, or even maple syrup.  About equal amounts of each.  Mix that well, then paint up the birds, top and bottom.

Put your chickens on a rack in a large roasting pan.   Add water to the left-over herb mixture, and pour it in the bottom of the pan.  Ooooh, this is going to smell so good!

Into an oven set to 375 for 45 minutes, then take them out and turn the birds over.  Cook for another 45 minutes. Yes, it's a pain.  Just do it.  The sugar in the sauce will make the birds brown really well, if you don't do this you'll end up with two-tone gallinas, not very pretty.

When your birds are cooked, take them out and let them cool, then remove the lemons and cut the chickens in pieces for serving.  I have a special carbon steel knife for this, Left Brain has to leave the kitchen because it makes him muy nervioso.