Roasted Chicken from Bistro de l'Hotel

I recently went to a great French restaurant with my family and a group of people. The menu was set because the local experts we were with had wanted to make sure that we got to eat "the best chicken ever." Granted, they were very nice Bresse chickens (all white with blue legs/feet and delicious) which we don't have access to in Washington (that I know of). I swapped in an organic whole chicken from Whole Foods which was totally fine and tasted about the same. Usually when I roast a chicken, I stuff it with either lemons or onions/garlic and bake it with a few pads of butter on the skin at 350 for an hour and a half. The method that the restaurant used was totally different- they used a mixture of olive oil and clarified butter (which burns at a higher temp than regular butter) and cooked the chickens at a temp of 475 for a total of 45 minutes (nothing inside the chicken). The result is a really juicy chicken with crispy, perfectly browned skin that comes out surrounded in the best chicken juice ever. We also had roasted asparagus and mashed potatoes with our chicken where were the perfect accompaniment (both recipes for those are on my blog under the lambchops recipe). One whole chicken serves 4 very well but can definitely be stretched to serve 6, or you can make 2 chickens and have leftovers.

For the Clarified Butter:

-Bring 2 sticks of unsalted butter to a boil in a small pan. Use a sieve to scrape the white foam off the top of the butter as it boils. Once you have gotten most of it off, strain the rest through the sieve or a pice of cheesecloth. Put aside. All you are doing is removing the white milk proteins that will burn if you cook the butter at a high temp and we don't want that.

For the Chicken:

Ingredients:

-2/3 c clarified butter

-1/3 c olive oil

-1 whole chicken

-2 tbs fresh pepper

-2-3 tbs salt

Directions:

-Set oven to 475 degrees.

-Mix the clarified butter with the olive oil and let cool until it turns into gel.

-Rinse and dry the chicken (sometimes it comes with liver/kidneys/neck inside the cavity. If it does, make sure you remove these and throw them away or save for stock). It is important to dry the chicken thoroughly, if there is water on the skin then the chicken skin will steam instead of brown nicely.

-Spread about 2/3 of the butter/oil mixture on the chicken (I used the rest of it in the mashed potatoes in place of regular butter which was great, or you can save it in the fridge for another chicken). Make sure you get the butter/oil on both sides of the chicken.

-Sprinkle half of the salt and pepper on one side of the chicken, and half on the other side of the chicken.

-Place the chicken in a roasting pan (brownie pan will work just fine) upside down and roast for 20 minutes, upside down. 

-After 20 minutes, turn the chicken break side up and continue to roast for 25 more minutes or until a food thermometer reads 165 degrees for internal meat temp.

-Cut off the legs and breast meat, let sit in the chicken juices while everyone serves themselves.