Four Days from One Meal: Day One

photo credit to Yvonne Wong, as shown on Style Me Pretty.


One of the best things about roast chicken, other than pure deliciousness, is the many ways that one small bird can be used to make dinner. Last night, I prepared a 3.8 pound chicken, roasted with butter, rosemary and onion. For sides, I made mashed potatoes and braised spinach (the mashed potatoes will come into play again later in the week). For the next four days, I am going to show you how to make four meals from one small chicken and eight baking potatoes, plus a few other things.

Unfortunately, I didn't even think to take a picture of my beautiful roasted chicken until after we had carved it up. So, just imagine a nicely roasted chicken with-extra browned skin, the surface lightly scattered with rosemary sprigs, cracked black pepper and pink Himalayan sea salt.


Buttery Roast Chicken

I followed a basic recipe from the New York Times Cookbook, and made some inventive changes of my own. Adding butter to the top of the chicken gives the skin a rich, brown color, while placing frozen butter under the skin allows the chicken to be basted with butter as it cooks.

One 3 to 4 lb chicken
Salt and freshly cracked black pepper
One small onion, peeled and cut into quarters
Four or 5 sprigs fresh rosemary
2 tablespoons softened butter
4 tablespoons frozen butter, cut into small pieces

An hour before starting to cook the chicken, pluck any remaining feathers, remove giblets and rinse the inside and outside; pat dry with a paper towel. Trim excess fat and neck; set aside for chicken stock, if desired. Sprinkle liberally with salt and pepper, set the chicken aside and bring to room temperature for about an hour.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Place the onion and most of the rosemary inside the cavity of the chicken. Remove the rest of the rosemary from the stem, reserve. Using fingers, gently lift the skin from the top of the chicken. Slide the frozen butter inside and distribute evenly. Rub the softened butter over the skin of the chicken, and sprinkle with the reserved rosemary.

Bake the chicken for 18 to 20 minutes per pound, about 1 1/4 hours. Every 20 minutes to half an hour, baste the chicken with the pan juices. Towards the end of the cooking time, begin to check for doneness by moving the leg of chicken up and down. If it moves easily, the chicken is done.