Just what the 'doctor' ordered!

Enjoy!

I don't recall ever having anything but plain old/plain old grocery store chicken, and don't want to find a fancy French restaurant for roast chicken!

It cost more, but they were super delicious.

At any rate, this recipe will make the most out of a plain old grocery store chicken. You will feel like you are in a fancy french restaurant.

for a Rosie's chicken. The difference between those and commercially farmed chickens is astonishing. For one thing, there is no way to cut the meat with the side of a fork. For another, the flavor is just amazing, without any of those chemical overtones of grocery store chicken.

It's worth the megabucks (and I mean at least twenty for a good sized chicken the last time I looked) to see the difference that allowing chickens to hunt and scratch for a few hours a day makes.

Just be aware that they're not the genetically manipulated birds with the super sized breasts that make it impossible for them to stand or walk. They're real chickens that are the closest thing I know to backyard chickens.

May try it, and I don't like breast meat anyway!

quality chicken. Especially when you have to settle for regular. My grandmother came over on the boat from Ukraine and recreating her soup has been my goal in life. Fresh fowl.

For roasted chicken....olive oil and herbs and stuffing a whole chicken with an onion and lemon and cooking very high and then slow roast at a low temp works like a charm and constant basting.

and like my kind of cooking. How do you deal with peeling those little onions?

Make a shallow cut from end to end and start there to slip the peel off. Or tops and roots off and blanch to make the outer layer(s) easier to slip off. I usually do the shallow cut.

I do the former. It just takes more time than I like.

but I just use the tip of the knife to get it started and it's certainly no worse than peeling a standard yellow onion.

you don't have so many. They also don't cost $5 a bag, my principal gripe with the cipollini.

is that onions come in two sizes: the small ones barely bigger than onion sets and huge ones that look like they have gland problems. Often I only want a medium sized onion, which means I have half an onion sitting in the fridge stinking the place up.

I put the other half in a zip-lock bag ti keep the smell out of the fridge.

they are real handy to have.

good idea

One of the things I loved about this recipe was the ability to have a bit of each thing individually dipped in the sauce.

In light of that, I wouldn't cut off both ends and recommend the blanching method.

and the skins come off easily.

I brown a whole chicken in a dutch oven on the stove (in butter). Then throw in vegies, cover and bake.
I wonder what would happen if I added white wine and broth. hmmm...

It came out unbelievably moist and the sauce it was served in was outstanding.

I might add potatoes next time, just so I can soak up more of that sauce.

. . . . . The use of the Dutch oven. Or at least the reminder to use it. They cook like no other pot. So wonderfully basic and old fashioned.

My mother never had a Dutch oven, but she did a very similar preparation in a cast iron fry pan she had, with a cast iron lid. The lid was very high domed and could handle a whole chicken with ease.

I have no idea what ever became of that pan. I think one of my sons has it. I need to ask them.

Speaking of sourcing chicken, when I was a kid, we lived next door to one of my grandmothers. When grandpa died, she stopped raising back yard chickens (It was perfectly legal back then . . . . chickens and rabbits. We used Togo once a week to a poultry store. Thy sold live chickens. It was a narrow, very deep storefront. Wood cages of live chickens lined one wall. You picked out the one or two you wanted and they killed, beheaded, plucked, and burned off the pin feathers over a gas jet. Then they gutted it, wrp it, and off you went. We always cooked them the day we got them, two or more at a time. Back then dinner could four or five of us up to a dozen or more people . . . on a weeknight!

Thanks for the recipe and for stirring my memories!

I use it for everything from cooking pasta to making soup to baking bread to roasting. Like my cast iron skillet, I love being able to go from stovetop to oven and back.

I have figured out how to get good produce, cheese and wine delivered out here, but not meat. I don't think I've ever had a chicken as you describe, but I would love to try one. I did have some freshly killed quails in France that were delicious!