Lizzie's Roasted Chicken with Salsa Verde (p. 238)

As you can probably guess by the gap between posts, I've been extremely busy lately! Between finishing a couple big projects for work, getting ready for Christmas, and traveling to Tennessee for business/visiting with the in laws, I haven't had much free time. I actually cooked my next dish, Lizzie's Roasted Chicken with Salsa Verde (p. 238) a week and a half ago, but am just now getting around to writing about it. 


Before the recipe, Michael tells a funny story about how Liz, his wife, could not cook when they first started dating. He goes so far as to say she, "almost took him out twice - once with some not so fresh crayfish and the other time with some medium-rare chicken." Fortunately she has come along way since they first started dating and Michael credits this recipe to her.

The first thing to know about making Lizzie's Chicken is that the prep actually starts the day before you are ready to eat it. As with many of Michael's recipes, he recommends seasoning the chicken the night before cooking.

2 3/4 lb chicken from Plum Creek Farm seasoned with kosher salt

I rubbed the chicken down with olive oil and liberally seasoned the entire chicken inside & out, with Diamond kosher salt. Don't be afraid that you are using too much salt!

Chicken seasoned with salt wrapped in plastic wrap ready to go back into the fridge

After seasoning with salt, I wrapped the chicken in plastic wrap and put it back in the fridge until the next night.

All the ingredients for stuffing the chicken

The next night,  about an hour before I wanted to put it in the oven, I pulled the chicken out of the fridge and got the ingredients ready to stuff the chicken. I cut the lemon & onion into slices and organized the thyme, garlic & bay leaves. I carefully lifted the skin from the chicken and stuffed lemon slices between the breasts & the skin, along with the bay leaves. Then I put the remaining lemon into the cavity of the chicken, along with the onions, thyme, and garlic.

Chicken stuffed & ready to go into the oven

At 8:55 the chicken was ready to go in the oven. Yes, I know, we eat too late.

 

All the ingredients for making the salsa verde.

Once the chicken was in the oven it was time to start the salsa verde. In case you aren't familiar with salsa verde, or green sauce, it is a cold sauce made mostly out of herbs. There are different ethnic versions of salsa verde; the one in this recipe is an Italian rendition with parsley, capers, shallots, anchovies, garlic, mint, jalapeno, lemon, & olive oil.

Chopped ingredients for the salsa verde

I chopped all the ingredients into a uniform size and mixed them together.

 

Zesting the lemon

The next step is to zest & juice the lemon. To get the most juice from a lemon, first bring the fruit to room temperature and roll on a hard surface while pressing down on the lemon.
Of course this assumes you want a lot of lemon juice, more on this later...

 

All the salsa verde ingredients waiting for the olive oil

 

Salsa verde all mixed up

Mix in the olive oil and the salsa verde is ready to go. It makes a great snack on some crusty bread while you are waiting for the chicken to finish roasting.

 

Roasted chicken at 160 degrees

After about an hour the chicken was done roasting and was nice and brown. 

 

Pan drippings

There were lots of yummy drippings in the pan so I decided to make a pan gravy by deglazing the roasting pan with some homemade chicken stock I had in the fridge and reducing it.

 

Chicken gravy in pureed cauliflower

I added the gravy to my Vita Mix along with some cauliflower I'd pureed. I'd never really eaten cauliflower before buying some at the Homerville Produce Auction this fall and quickly discovered this under appreciated vegetable. This made a nice side dish to go with the chicken. It was like mashed potatoes & gravy but with less carbs.

 

Carved chicken

After letting the chicken rest for 10-15 minutes, I carefully carved the legs, wings, thighs, and breast off and saved the carcass for making stock in the future. Carving chickens definitely takes some practice and I think I've finally got it down. It used to look like a big mess when I was done carving so I was quite pleased with the results.

 

One serving of the chicken topped with salsa verde

Finally, I topped off each serving with a few spoonfuls of the delicious salsa verde.

I should preface my review of Lizzie's by saying neither my wife, nor I , are very big fans of lemon. There are many great uses for lemon outside of cooking. Here are some examples I found thanks to Google:

• Whiten fingernails. Rub a wedge on the surface of your nails.
• Shine the interior of copper cookware. Sprinkle a lemon wedge with salt, then scrub.
• Brighten laundry whites. Add 1/2 cup lemon juice to the wash cycle of a normal-size load.
  
• Remove soft cheese or other sticky foods from a grater. Rub both sides of the grater with the pulp side of a cut lemon. 
• Remove odors from hands. Rub your hands with a cut lemon just before washing. 
• Keep your garbage disposal fresh. Run used lemon peels through your garbage disposal to keep it smelling fresh. 
• Heal wounds faster & lowers body temperatures. Eating lemons also hastens healing of wounds and helps to lower high body temperature.
  
• Stop nose bleeds. A few drops of lemon juice dabbed on a cotton ball and applied to nostrils helps to stop nose bleeding.
• Last but not least, the Lemon Cleanse Diet. Read more about it here or here. Proceed with caution! 

To our taste bugs, this dish was LEMON OVERLOAD. I ate the leg first, then the thigh, then the breast (which I did not finish). The legs were pretty tasty because they didn't have lemon resting on them through the roasting process. The thigh had a much stronger lemon taste and the breast was almost inedible the lemon was so strong. 


I really liked the salsa verde, especially the crunch from the shallots & jalapeno's. But it also had a lot of lemon in it so I did not like it paired with the chicken. I had plenty left over and it was a great topping on crusty bread. 


Needless to say, I won't be making roasted lemon chicken again. I'd much rather have a simple roasted chicken seasoned with salt & pepper and nothing else like Thomas Keller, especially when enjoying a juicy, pasture raised bird from Plum Creek Farm


Want to see Michael & Liz prepare this dish? Check out the video here. 


Cost
I will provide the approximate cost for each recipe in the book, as well as the source of the products used. I try my best to use locally sourced, high quality ingredients.

It cost approximately $25.43 to make Lizzie's Roasted Chicken with Salsa Verde. The cost break down is below:

Roasted Chicken:

Whole Chicken, 2.75 lbs - $11 from Plum Creek Farm
Lemon - $0.75
Onion - $0.50 (Homerville Produce Auction)
Misc (Salt, bay leaves, garlic, fresh thyme, olive oil) - $1

Salsa Verde:

Parsley - $1.49
Mint - $2.39
King Oscar Anchovies - $1
Lemon $0.75
Roland Salt Packed Capers - $0.85
Hojiblanca Extra Virgin Olive Oil (Olive Tap) - $4.70 
Misc (Garlic, shallot, jalapeno, red pepper flakes, salt, pepper) - $1

Unless otherwise noted, all ingredients for this dish came from Heinen's 

Nutritional information:
I am not a nutrition expert but I will provide some information about the key ingredient of each dish. In this case I chose lemon.

Lemons are low in calories and contain no fat. They are best known for Vitamin C which is essential for healthy gums, teeth and bones. Lemons are also a good source of Vitamin B6, Iron and Potassium, and an excellent source of Dietary Fiber and Vitamin C.

Most of the health benefits of lemon can be attributed to the presence Vitamin C. Lemons are good for digestion, cancer, heart diseases, arthritis, boosting immune system, diabetes, liver disorders, infections, dental care, hair care, skin care, and urinary tract infections. Vitamin C also helps heal wounds and fractures too. It helps build a resistance to infections, giving strength to blood vessels and aids in the absorption of iron.