Those who know me know that I have long disliked chicken. This mostly likely stems from my year in Italy during college, when I lived with an Italian woman who ate nothing but chicken breast pan fried in olive oil (from her native Calabria, of course) EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. She'd plate her little chicken breast on a deep plate filled with more olive oil and accompany it with a loaf of crusty Italian bread, pieces of which would end up all over the kitchen every night. I never saw her eat anything else in the entire year I lived with her, and this despite the fact that I often offered to share with her whatever I was cooking (Italy is, after all, where my love for food began). Upon leaving Italy, I was fully prepared to never have to look at or smell chicken ever again. Period.
It's been nearly nine years now since I returned from Italy, however, and I have slowly been working on my relationship with chicken, mostly because, in J, I have found someone who really knows how to cook it properly. He's been helping me take baby steps, of course, stuffing it with goat cheese, mushrooms, spinach and onions or grilling it and topping a dinner salad with slices of it, for example. Well, last night I think I finally and fully banished my chicken demons and took the huge step of cooking it myself - and to brilliant results, if I do say so myself.
So without further adieu, please let me introduce this week's CorkPopper dinner - Lemon Garlic Chicken with Roasted Lemon-Onion Sauce.* The tangy citrus and sweet roasted onions, along with the perfectly juicy chicken were a perfect compliment to the pleasant acidity of the
Bodegas Martin Codax Albarino.
Ingredients:
1 5-lb. roasting chicken
Sea salt and freshly ground pepper
2 lemons
1 head garlic, cut in half cross-wise
Extra virgin olive oil
2 medium sweet onions, peeled and thickly sliced
1/2 cup dry white wine (use a bit of the Martin Codax Albarino to really make the pairing pop)
1/2 cup chicken broth
1 tablespoon flour
Preparation:
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.
Remove and discard any chicken giblets. Pat the outside of the chicken dry with a paper towel. Liberally salt and pepper the inside of the chicken. Cut the lemons in quarters and place two lemon wedges inside the chicken, along with the garlic. Rub the outside of the chicken with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Tie the legs together with kitchen string and tuck the wing tips under the body of the chicken.
Place the chicken in a small roasting pan. (If the pan is too large, the onions will burn.) Place the reserved lemons and the sliced onions in a large bowl and toss with some olive oil, salt and pepper. Arrange the lemons and onions around the chicken in the roasting pan.
Roast the chicken for about 1 hour and 15 minutes, until the juices run clear when you cut between a leg and a thigh. Remove the chicken to a platter, cover with aluminum foil, and allow to rest for 10 minutes while you prepare the sauce, leaving the lemons and onions in the pan.
Place the pan on top of the stove and turn the heat to medium-high. Add the wine and stir with a wooden spoon to scrape up the brown bits. Add the broth and sprinkle on the flour, stirring constantly for a minute, until the sauce thickens. Add any juices that collect under the chicken.
Carve the chicken onto a platter and serve with the lemons, onions, and warm sauce, along with some crusty grilled bread and a simple green salad with a white wine vinaigrette.
Hello, chicken!!!
Cheers and bon appetito!!!
Laurel
* This is actually an Ina Garten (aka Barefoot Contessa)
recipe. I hadn't originally intended it to be this week's CorkPopper dinner (which J and I usually create on our own), but it turned out so well that there was really no question.
