Simple Roast Chicken

 All I really wanted to make was chicken stock, but this recipe from Kitchn called for the bones from a roast chicken, so I thought I might as well do that first.

I found this recipe from Epicurious, and it IS super simple, which is generally a red flag, but I trust Epicurious, and it was good!

All you do is:
– Dry the chicken really well with paper towels
– Sprinkle the inside with salt and pepper and the outside with just salt
– Truss the chicken, which I think just means tie the wings to the body and the legs together? (You’re supposed to do this with twine. The closest thing I had was a shoelace… but it worked!)
– Bake it at 450* for 50-60 minutes
– Take it out, add some thyme to the juices and baste the chicken with that
– Let it sit for 15 minutes

So easy!

Although I managed to make it complicated for myself… As the chicken was roasting, my apartment began to fill with smoke, like to the point it was hurting my eyes a little. I had fans going, but it’s super hot out so who knows.

Also apparently my smoke alarm doesn’t work? Need to check on that… (I moved again, by the way, and this apartment has a way better kitchen!)

So anyway, I ended up setting off the alarm in the hall! And in my frantic attempt to get it to shut up, I turned off the oven. And then I forgot I turned off the oven, checking on the chicken every once in a while, assuming it was still cooking. Not until I went to turn the oven off when it was “done” did I realize – Oops!

So then I frantically surveyed the internet about how long you have to roast chicken, and at what temperature, etc… The upshot seems to be that if you cut in between the leg and the body and the juices run clear, that it’s done. And they did, so I guess it’s fine. But that was fun!

Here’s the stock. I did what Kitchn said, except no carrots, and I saved the drippings from the roast chicken pan to add in – yum!