Roasted Chicken

I often talk about my moms roasted chicken that we ate every Saturday or Sunday growing up. I am not kidding when I say that we ate this at least once a week, the only thing that changed was side dishes and I loved all of them. There is just nothing like your moms roasted chicken. Except in my case there is something better, my moms fired chicken, but I will get to that some other time because this roasted chicken is something I don’t do often enough but before the kids came it often found its place on our Thanksgiving table when I didn’t want to make a whole turkey for just me and Chris. We always celebrate Thanksgiving with the family and we get to eat the most amazing turkey then, but at home for just us turkey was (still is) just too big…and I don’t like making just the breasts. I think we will have a nice roasted chicken the day after Thanksgiving again this year and I just might attempt to make traditional Croatian side dish Mlinci. There is nothing like it, at least not to me, but my silly Chris keeps calling them soggy tortillas and gets me mad every time. I take my mlinci business very seriously :D!

1 whole organic chicken

3 Tbsp of butter

1 Tbsp of Herbs de Provence

2 sprigs of fresh Rosemary

small bunch of fresh Thyme sprigs

1 lemon, cut in half

salt and pepper

oil for the pan

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Pat dry the chicken with a paper towel and then rub it well on the outside with the butter. Salt generously inside and out and then rub it with herbs de Provence. Put some lemon halves and fresh herbs inside the chicken and then put it breast side down into an oiled baking dish and put into a preheated oven. Bake for about an hour and a half, basting it every 20 minutes or so. It is done when the meat is pulling away form the bones. If it’s browning too fast cover it with an aluminum foil.

I like to slice some potatoes and or yams and put in around the chicken for the last 45 minutes, they get amazing flavor baking together in the chicken fat and drippings!