Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Recipe Round-Up: The search has ended?

I've mentioned before that I love cooking, right? Especially if it's easy and I can delegate tasks to the family. There's one thing that I make that is mine and mine alone though. I like to experiment with this dish, I'm on a mission to perfect this dish, to find the pinnacle of the dish...

What dish is this? Oh, I'm so glad you asked. You'll probably be disappointed by my answer though, but since you asked...it's a simple roasted chicken. I know! I told you you'd be disappointed. What's that thing that famous and kind of annoying chef always says?? Oh yeah, "This ain't rocket science, folks!" While I might be intrigued by dishes that are much more difficult to master, they don't fit into my easy cooking way of life.

OK, so on to the chicken. This time around, I wanted to move away from the traditional thyme/rosemary/tarragon with salt and pepper, etc...For some reason, I had this idea that brown sugar would be good, and garlic...and a new compound butter was born. And it was good. So good that even my picky eater proclaimed the chicken to be "awesomesauce."  So, here it is...

Leila's Awesomesauce Chicken


Ingredients:
1 Roasting Chicken or bone in chicken pieces of choice
1/4c butter, softened
5-6 cloves garlic, minced or made into a paste
1/4 cup parsley, finely chopped
1 tsp lemon juice
3 Tbsp brown sugar
1 Tbsp smoked paprika
kosher or sea salt & pepper to taste

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400°F
Rinse and pat chicken dry, inside and out. 
Truss the chicken.
Mix butter and next five ingredients in a bowl. 
Coat the chicken with the butter, under the skin too!!
Finish with a liberal sprinkling of salt and pepper.
Place in your favorite roasting pan (I used my electric roaster.) and bake for 50 minutes or until meat is 170°F in the legs. Carve. Enjoy!

And there you have it! I do believe this is the best roast chicken I've ever made. My husband did the 'eyeroll of ecstasy' when he tasted it and my kids are asking for leftovers today. Too bad there's nothing left for them to eat!! Until next time...




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