How to Roast a Chicken

Roast chicken can be a treasure. For new cooks striving to impress without too much fear of failure, roast chicken is a  gift; for experienced  cooks it’s a way to feed unexpected guests without much fuss or muss. And every cookbook has a recipe, some straightforward, others intricate; you can follow any one of them and have a roast chicken on the table that guests will always be happy to ooh over.   

   Now, for Julia Child, a “juicy, brown, buttery, crisp-skinned, heavenly bird” requires “such a greed for perfection that one is under compulsion to hover over the bird, listen to it, above all see that it is continually basted….” 

   Though I admire Julia, and turn to her often, there is, I may say, another way.

   I am not the kind of cook who marvels at the effort made to produce a simple dish (although I would go to the effort that some people make to get their offspring into USC or Yale when it comes to certain Asian dishes — see some of the master sauces in Ming Tsai’s “Simply Ming”). But the best roast chicken I ever made was accomplished by breaking lots of rules.

   No basting; no trussing; no hovering. We are talking a 3- to 4-pound bird here. Unwrap the chicken, dry it with paper towels  and let it sit in the fridge for a couple of hours. Then leave the butter in the refrigerator and bring out a couple of lemons and some Diamond Crystal kosher salt. The idea here is to dry and flavor the chicken inside and out with lemon juice and plenty of salt, inside and out. Do not truss; do not hover. Let the bird sit breast down in a rack over a pan and roast at 350 degrees for two thirds of the cooking time. (I figure 20 minutes a pound; you probably have your own method here.) For the last 20 minutes, turn this baby over to crisp up the breast. Let it rest a few minutes, carve and enjoy your company.