Failure is Relative: Roast Some Chicken
Failure is relative is my new mantra for this month. I thought it appropriate as our country seems to be moving in a direction toward some semblance of a new normal. I know this moving back out into the “real” world from the “virtual” world has produced a certain amount of anxiety and anticipation. In spite of the thousands of group yoga classes I’ve taught, I was anxious and nervous to teach my first in-person class in a year. The mask covering my nose and mouth didn’t help, truth be told.
As I forgot to give certain cues and I had to correct myself, I had to laugh and tell the students I was flummoxed by teaching live again with a mask on and following all of the new mandates. One could certainly view my less than stellar first performance as a failure, but when I think about failure as being relative, then I realize how meaningless my screw-ups meant to the students. What became apparent was their anxiety about taking their first live class and facing the changes to their bodies that have taken place over this long and difficult year. See, failure is relative. My seeming failure was not viewed as such in their eyes and whatever failings they might have felt about their physical shape and endurance was most definitely not viewed that way in my eyes. Failure is relative.
Cooking, unlike baking, is something that this mantra fits perfectly. With the exception of flat out burning something to a crisp, most recipes can be saved, at least saved enough to be edible. One of the recipes that I’ve found to be the most forgiving, in terms of a failure being relative, is a classic roast chicken. If you google roast chicken recipes, you will find hundreds, if not thousands of recipes, for that perfect roast chicken. As someone who loves to read recipes, I’m pretty sure I’ve read at least a few dozen in my own quest to find the recipe that will make the most memorable roast chicken.
After all of the research and trials, I’ve found simplicity is the key to a delicious roast chicken.
Recipe and Instructions:
Set oven temperature to 425 degrees
1 small roaster 2 ½–3 lbs (I like to use an organic chicken or a kosher one)
Softened butter (generally leave out for a little bit to soften)
Herbs (any combination you like or have on hand. I generally use thyme, rosemary, a little sage)
2 cloves of minced garlic
1 onion cut in half
1 lemon cut in half
3–4 carrots cut
1 onion sliced
5–6 small potatoes sliced
First, rinse the chicken, pat dry, and leave it out on a roasting pan. A little air time will help ensure crispier skin.
Salt and pepper the chicken all over and inside the cavity. You can be generous with salt and pepper.
Make the herb butter by adding minced garlic, chopped herbs into the softened butter. Add salt and pepper and mix.
Place half onion, lemon into the cavity of the chicken. Place chopped onion, carrots, and potatoes into the bottom of the roasting pan. Sprinkle vegetables with salt and pepper. You could add a tiny bit of olive oil over the veggies.
Take the skin over the breast, see if you can create a little space between the skin and the meat. Take a bit of the herb butter and slide it into space. Take the rest of the herb butter and lather it over the chicken.
Place chicken on top of the vegetables. Place pan into the oven. Set timer for 20 minutes. Once the timer goes off, reduce oven temperature to 325. Bake for an additional hour. Baste every so often with the drippings. If you are using a meat thermometer, the temperature should read 160.
If you over bake, you can always take the pan drippings, add a little white wine and make a nice gravy. If you under bake it, just stick it back in until it’s cooked. As you can see, whatever you might view as a failure is relative since it can, most likely, be saved. That is unless you burn it to a crisp and fire marshals are needed. As I’m saying to myself all month, failure is relative.