After a summer of living on the deck, outdoor grilling, salads, and no-cook suppers, we’ve come in to get cozy. A pot of applesauce bubbling on the stove, a rich braise of short ribs, a pumpkin pie – John inevitably appears in the kitchen mumbling, “something smells good”, as he tips up a pot lid or cracks the oven door to get a peek. And of all the things that tantalize, Lemon Thyme Roast Chicken is close to the top of the list.
Seasoned butter pushed up under the skin bastes and flavors the breast meat of this chicken, keeping it extra moist and juicy. Lemon and thyme are a perfect pairing of bright and earthy flavors that complement the chicken without overpowering it.
Anyone who’s ever roasted a bird knows that the timing is a balancing act, that there’s a tipping point when the dark meat is cooked through but the white meat is still moist. Take the bird out too soon and the thigh will be unappetizingly (and perhaps even dangerously) under-cooked; leave it in too long and the breast will be chewy and dry.
A few tips for hitting the sweet spot every time:
- If your bird comes with a plastic, pop-up thingy in the breast that’s supposed to indicate when it’s done, pull it out before you start prepping the chicken. Those devices are unreliable.
- Slather the breast meat — under the skin — with butter, to add moisture and flavor where it’s needed most.
- Know your oven. My oven has a convection Roast setting, which helps with browning. It’s also supposed to cut about 10% off the roasting time provided in recipes; I find it usually shortens the cooking time significantly more than that. With a long-cooking bird, a 10% difference could add up to 15 extra minutes, which could be disastrous. I always start checking the internal temperature of the bird well in advance of when I expect it to be done. (The estimated roasting time given in this recipe is NOT adjusted for my oven; it’s what you should expect from a standard/non-convection oven.)
- Use an instant-read thermometer, inserted into the deepest part of the thigh near the joint, to test for doneness. The chicken will be completely done when then temperature in this area of the bird reaches 175 degrees, but you don’t want it to get that high while it’s still in the oven, because the temperature will continue to rise as the bird rests. You want to take the bird out of the oven when the temperature in the thigh joint is 165 degrees.
- Let the bird rest for 20 minutes before carving. Not only does this allow the temperature to come up to where you want it, it also lets the juices redistribute throughout the bird so they don’t all run out when you carve it. And obviously you also need this time to make gravy and give the side dishes whatever finishing touches they need.
Making this ahead and what to do with leftovers:
- The first steps for preparing Lemon Thyme Roast Chicken should ideally be done the day before – salting and drying the bird the day before adds flavor and helps produce a crispy skin.
- Roasting the bird ahead of time is fine if you’re going to re-purpose the meat into leftovers: once the bird cools, the skin will not be crisp and the meat will be less juicy, so it’s not the same as serving a freshly roasted bird but it is some of the best leftovers you’ll ever eat. The possibilities for leftover roast chicken are so numerous I can’t even begin to go there, but think soups, sandwiches, salads, casseroles, pot pie…
To see this recipe featured in a menu, including timing for preparing this and the other dishes, read my post for Saturday Night, October 5, 2019.
Lemon Thyme Roast Chicken
October 13, 2019
: 6
Ingredients
- One 6- to 7-pound roasting chicken
- Kosher salt
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
- 1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme
- 1 lemon
- Extra-virgin olive oil
- Freshly ground black pepper
- Chicken broth (approximately 3 cups)
- Instant flour (such as Wondra) (approximately ¼ cup)
Directions
- Step 1 Start the day before roasting, or early in the day. Remove the chicken from its packaging and remove the bag of giblets from the cavity. (You will not be using the giblets for this recipe.) Using paper towels, dry the inside cavity and the outside of the chicken as much as you can. Salt the inside and outside with 2 teaspoons of the kosher salt if using Diamond Crystal brand salt, 1 teaspoon if using Morton’s. Put the chicken on a plate and chill it, uncovered, for several hours or overnight.
- Step 2 To make the lemon thyme butter, combine the softened butter with the thyme and the zest of the lemon.
- Step 3 Heat the oven to 350 degrees, using the Roast setting if your oven has one.
- Step 4 Gently loosen the skin away from the chicken breast by running your fingers carefully between the skin and the breast meat. There is a membrane that runs down the center of the breast – gently pull this away from the meat to form one large pocket under the skin. If you can’t get your hand all the way under the skin from the front of the bird, turn it around and go in from the other end to loosen the skin all the way from front to back. Using your fingers, take small blobs of the butter mixture and push it under the skin, smoothing across the top of the skin to push the butter out and evenly distribute it across the breast.
- Step 5 Tuck the wings under. Cut the lemon into quarters and stuff them into the cavity. Truss the chicken with kitchen twine. Place it on a rack in a roasting pan.
- Step 6 Slather the skin all over with extra-virgin olive oil. Sprinkle the top of the chicken with more kosher salt, and a generous shower of black pepper. Pour some chicken broth into the bottom of the roasting pan to a depth of about ½ inch.
- Step 7 Roast the chicken for approximately 20 minutes per pound, but start checking the internal temperature well in advance of when you expect it to be done, as oven temperatures vary, and you will be opening the oven from time to time and letting heat escape. Every 30 minutes or so, bring the chicken out of the oven to the stove top or a heat proof surface. Pour some chicken broth over the chicken, both to baste it and to replenish the juices in the bottom of the pan back up to a depth of about ½ inch. Rotate the pan so the chicken is facing the opposite direction, and return the pan to the oven. Repeat this process throughout the cooking time.
- Step 8 When the temperature in the deepest part of the thigh registers 165 degrees on an instant read thermometer, remove the chicken from the oven. Before you take it out of the pan, insert a long-handled spoon into the cavity, and – with a mitt on your other hand – gently tip the butt of the chicken up so the chicken is inverted, held up by the spoon, and all the juices that have gathered in the cavity run out into the pan. Move the chicken to a board or platter, cover it loosely with foil, and let it sit for 20 minutes. (If you need to you can let it sit longer, up to 40 minutes, and it will still be hot.)
- Step 9 Meanwhile, make the gravy. Carefully pour the contents of the roasting pan into a gravy separator. Move the empty roasting pan to the stove top, straddled across two burners, over medium heat.
- Step 10 Pour the pan juices from the bottom of the gravy separator into a measuring cup, and pour the fat out into a separate cup. The quantity of gravy you can make depends on the quantity of the juices. The proportions for gravy are 1 part fat, 1 part Wondra, 2 parts juices and 4 parts chicken broth. So if you have ½ cup of juices, you’ll need ¼ cup of fat, ¼ cup of Wondra, and 1 cup of chicken broth, and you’ll end up with about 1 ½ cups of gravy.
- Step 11 Measure out the appropriate amount of fat based on the volume of juices you have, and put the fat in the roasting pan. If you don’t have enough fat, make up the difference with butter. Add the Wondra and cook, whisking constantly, for 2 or 3 minutes. Add the juices and chicken broth, and continue whisking until the gravy is bubbling and thickened. The gravy will probably be salty, because you generously salted the chicken, so it probably won’t need any seasoning, but taste and adjust to your preference.
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