I feel like chicken tonight!

For those who know me, they know I love to cook. This week's dining guide in the Daily Northwestern was quite enlightening to see that the dining and cooking community in Northwestern is very much alive and thriving. For the first three years here, I was strictly confined to the dorm food that Northwestern served. It's not like I could complain when there's a fresh salad bar everyday, hot breakfast (who can resist tater-tots) and the cookie bar on Sundays - but I love variety. That being said, the dining halls' variety in Northwestern have made bold attempts at trying to encompass a wide range of foods, from Chinese stir-fry to Greek hummus. But the stuff wears on you real quickly. I wanted to do something different on my own.

Since I moved off campus last year, it gave me the time to experiment. Last week I discovered a great recipe for roasting a whole chicken - it's really simple to make and gives you best value for your dollar especially with the stagflation leading to rising food prices. White meat, dark meat, drums, wings and everything - the meat lasts you two to three days at least (depending on the size of the chicken). Here's what you need:

- 1 whole chicken (a roaster by Perdue has one of those internal thermometers that pop up when it's done. Makes it easy for figuring out when to pull the chicken out of the oven)
- 6-8 cloves garlic, finely diced
- 1-2 tbsp diced green onion (keep the stalk for your gravy)
- 2 tbsp diced rosemary (keep a couple stalks with leaves intact)
- 2 bay leaves (1 diced, 1 intact)
- 1/3 stick of butter, salted at room temperature
- 1 orange or lemon
- 2 tbsp flour or corn starch
- salt
- pepper
- olive oil


1. Preheat oven to 400F. Unwrap chicken and remove giblets. The giblets are usually in a bag up the chicken's butt.
2. Place giblets in 4-5 cups of water and simmer (covered). Add chopped stalks of green onion and a bay leaf. This will be your chicken stock
3. Shave orange/lemon all the way around to get the zest and finely dice it. Remember not to shave too far: only orange/yellow, no white part of the fruit which is usually bitter.
4. In a bowl, place butter, onion, rosemary, diced leaf, orange/lemon zest, salt and pepper. Mash it all together with a spoon so that you get a consistent rub.
5. Pull wings all the way behind the back of the chicken, (be liberal with it, but try not snap the wing off).
6. Remove excess white fat from around cavity of the chicken. From the cavity where the stomach begins, there should be an opening that goes under the skin of the stomach and breast. Use the back of the skewer stick or a chopstick to loosen the skin from the breast and stomach (do not break the partition that goes up the middle of the breast, it will help keep the rub consistent). This should give you enough room to stuff about 4 tbsp of the rub underneath the skin. Use the stick to spread the rub evenly underneath the skin.
7. Cut orange/lemon in half, sqeeuze out juices into cavity and stuff halves into cavity. Stuff chicken with rosemary/onion stalks if you still have them. Use the rub to spread a thin layer around the entire chicken. Also add salt and pepper around the chicken to season. Tie the legs of the chicken together.
8. Glaze roasting pan with olive oil. Place chicken breast up, back down onto the roasting pan and roast for about 2 hours (5-6 pounds), 2.5 hours for (6-8 pounds). Stop every 30 minutes or so to baste chicken with the sauce from the pan - this will keep the chicken moist. The internal thermometer will pop-up when it's done.
9. Remove chicken and let sit for 15 mins. Remove legs, wings. Cut diagonally to remove both breasts. Cut white meat perpendically to nice easily edible pieces. On the back of the chicken, remove the brown meat. And now it's ready!
10. Place watery stock (no giblets) into the roasting pan and shovel up the chicken bits on the roasting pan while putting it on medium heat. Also add the flour or corn starch until the gravy becomes thick. Place gravy into bowl and it's ready to serve.

If you have any questions on how to prepare this or carve the chicken, post a comment. I'll try to add pictures!