Roast Lemon Chicken

I combined three different recipes to make this roast chicken last night for dinner and it was so amazing I had to share it. Roast chicken is pretty straightforward, but I did a few things here that I don't regularly do... I used a larger chicken - could they be more flavorful? - I cooked at a higher temperature - I rubbed the chicken with olive oil before roasting and last but not least, I stuffed the cavity with garlic, rosemary and lemon - I usually leave it empty. The combination of all of these new steps made for one delicious bird.


For the chicken:

1 5-6 pound naturally raised roasting chicken
2 teaspoons each: sugar, salt, herbs (such as sage, marjoram, thyme)
1 lemon
2-3 sprigs rosemary
1 head of garlic
1 tablespoon olive oil

For the sauce:

Pan drippings
1/2 cup white wine
3/4 cup chicken broth
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
juice of one lemon


First off, I bought a six pound roasting chicken because my family of four have big appetites and the small 3-4 pound broilers are just too small for us these days.

Next I did my standard dry rub (see the 11/15/06 post ) but I doubled the quantities so it was 2 teaspoons each: salt, sugar and herbs. Also, I didn’t have time to let it age in my fridge for two days so I did it for just over 24 hours – maybe 30 hours. Which was fine – so now we know.

I took the chicken out of the fridge to come to room temperature about an hour before roasting it. I preheated the oven to 450 degrees – much hotter than I normally use, but I was running late and I had to get dinner on the table. Necessity is the mother of invention, right. Now here’s the changes to my normal, everyday roast chicken.

I stuffed the cavity with one lemon, cut into four quarters, a few sprigs of rosemary and one head of garlic cut in half.

Next I rubbed the bird all over with olive oil and set it breast side down on a rack in my roasting pan.

I roasted it at 450, breast side down for 40 minutes. Then I took it out of the oven and carefully turned it over so the breast was up. The skin was quite dark – not quite burnt, but very browned. I roasted it for another 35 minutes and then turned the heat down to 425 for another 10 minutes.

Once it was done (165 in the thickest part of the thigh) I took it out turned it up to drain out all the juices from the cavity into the roasting pan and then set the chicken to rest on a plate. I discared the lemon, rosemary and garlic that were in the cavity.

I made a quick sauce with the pan drippings. First I set the roasting pan on a burner on medium high heat until it was boiling rapidly. Then I added 1/2 a cup of white wine and stirred and scraped with a wooden spoon until the liquid was reduced by about 1/2. I then added 3/4 cup of chicken broth and stirred and scraped some more. Then I poured the contents of the pan into my gravy separater and let it sit for a minute until all the fat had risen to the top. I poured the sauce through a strainer – stopping when I hit the fat portion of the liquid - into a clean sauce pan and heated it up to a rapid boil. Then I turned off the heat and added 1 tablespoon of butter and the juice of one lemon.

I served the chicken with the sauce on the side and it was one of the best chickens I’ve ever made.