You're not too stupid to cook roast chicken

Roast chicken among home cooks is an extremely hot topic, I've found.

It all started with a trade.

I was willing to give up five of my surplus strawberry plants for one hobby-farm-raised chicken from Laura McCrae, the Smokey Point creator of the eat-local Dark Days Challenge.

I knew McCrae had raised her own broilers last spring.

Finding a local chicken is easy if you hit the year-round Seattle farmers markets.

But if you want to buy one at a grocery store, you're more likely to end up with a “Northwest,” “Washington grown” or locally processed bird.

So I decided to use my poultry connections and enjoy, for the first time ever, a home-cooked, pastured bird from a friend.

Eating local is all about community, after all.

McCrae, who recently received more than 100 broiler chicks for her 2010 harvest, was busy and looking to clean out her freezer, so she was happy to part with a 4-pound bird.

I wrote her and the rest of the Dark Days crew for their favorite recipes. Not only did they send amazing ideas, they flooded my inbox with brilliant tips.

“A dry bird cooks way better than a wet bird,” McCrae explained. “Getting it out an hour before you cook it to dry and warm up makes a big difference in how crispy your skin is. I pat it dry, salt it and then place it on a rack so that it can air dry.”

Though the recipes ranged from simple (Thomas Keller) to elaborate (Julia Child's “Poulet Roti”), I ended up using a sort of non-recipe by food blogger Michael Ruhlman (recommended by a Bainbridge Island Dark Days participant).

In his post, “America: Too Stupid to Cook,” he jestingly titled his one-paragraph recipe, “The World's Most Difficult Roasted Chicken Recipe.”

It is nothing more than a chicken roasted on high heat, 425 to 450 degrees, with a coating of kosher salt and an optional fruit or vegetable inside the cavity.

Who needs such a simple recipe?

We do.

“Americans are being taught that we're too stupid to cook. That cooking is so hard we need to let other people do it for us. The messages are everywhere. Boxed cake mix. Why is it there? Because a real cake is too hard! You can't bake a cake! Takes too long, you can't do it, you're gonna fail!” he rants.

“Look at all those rotisserie chickens stacked in the warming bin at the grocery store. Why? Because roasting a chicken is too hard, takes FOREVER. An hour. I don't have an hour to watch a chicken cook!”

Ruhlman admits life is busy. Kids need to eat ... now!

But with a little juggling, we can all put a bird in the oven and enjoy the bliss of it without much fuss. And, honestly, have you ever made a roast chicken that tasted even remotely bad?

I, of course, couldn't resist adapting the “recipe” a little.

I had some non-local herbs I needed to use, so I put them on the outside of the bird with the salt. I put lemon and local garlic cloves in the cavity and anxiously put it in the flaming-hot oven.

I'm more used to the classic Betty Crocker recipe that calls for roasting at 375 degrees for 1½ hours, so I was worried.

Fortunately, it all worked out great.

I had to periodically put water in the bottom of the roasting pan to keep the drippings from burning and smoking, however.

I also had to cover the bird with foil because it was looking awfully dark in the skin.

The result was an excellent, crispy-skinned bird that was a delight to eat for me and my husband, who agreed that it tasted fuller in flavor, more like chicken.

I served it with local roasted sunchokes, ugly little potato-esque nubs that are in season now at the farmers markets, plus some non-local steamed green beans.

I didn't truss the bird or tie its legs back in the spirit of keeping things ridiculously simple.

I regretted it.

It would have made it just perfect and much prettier.

This is a meal anyone could make every week instead of ordering delivery or take out, including me, if I really set my mind to it.

Finding an affordable, pastured Western Washington bird, on the other hand, well, that's another story.

I'll be looking more into that.

But for now, we do what we can, right?

Find more Dark Days ideas at urbanhennery.com.

The World's Most Difficult Roasted Chicken Recipe

Turn your oven on high, 450 if you have ventilation, 425 if not.

Coat a 3- or 4-pound chicken with coarse kosher salt so that you have an appealing crust of salt, a tablespoon or so.

Put the chicken in a pan, stick a lemon or some onion or any fruit or vegetable you have on hand into the cavity.

Put the chicken in the oven.

Go away for an hour. Watch some TV, play with the kids, read, have a cocktail, have sex.

When an hour has passed, take the chicken out of the oven and put it on the stove top or on a trivet for 15 more minutes.

Finito.

Michael Ruhlman