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Thursday, January 12, 2012

Adventures in Gluten Free Cooking: Lemon Herb Chicken

I have started buying whole chickens at the store instead of just chicken breasts, wings, or thighs. Why? Just a secret between you and me I always wanted to be Laura Ingalls Wilder. Well, Laura Ingalls Wilder with an indoor bathroom with deodorant. Ok, but seriously, that's not why I started buying whole chickens. The real reason is that most of the time when I compare the price per pound of chicken breast to the price per pound of a whole chicken, it is cheeper to buy the whole chicken (even when taking into account the weight of the bones and...um...other stuff that are not meat to be eaten). I say most of the time because every once in a while the grocery store I buy meat from will have chicken on sale and that can be cheeper. But sales aside the 2 of us can get 2 or even 3 meals out of one (3-4lb) chicken. I like to make the smaller leftover meat pieces into chicken salad, chicken pot pie, or chicken noodle soup. 

But for the first meal I like to make




Ingredients:
1 chicken (3-4lbs)
2 T sea salt
1 t black pepper
2 cloves of garlic chopped
thyme*
basil*
oregano*
1 lemon
1/2 c olive oil




*For this chicken I used fresh herbs. Dried herbs would work just fine, I just like using the fresh ones better. I didnt get exact measurements on the herbs. I used about 5 medium basil leaves, 4 sprigs of thyme and 2 sprigs of oregano.


 First remove the chicken from its packaging, remove any 'extras' that may be inside the chicken, wash the chicken and pat dry with paper towels.


(I didnt think anyone wanted/needed to see pictures of me removing the 'extra'...yucko! Here is a picture of the pretty fresh herbs instead.)


Daniel taught me this trick: when chopping the herbs (if you are using fresh herbs) pour the sea salt over the top of the herb pile



and chop the herbs and salt together. 


The oils released by the chopped herbs will be absorbed by the salt! Smells soooooo good!


First zest the lemon into the herb/salt mixture, then cut lemon and add the juice of half of it to the herb/salt mixture. Save the other half of the lemon to put inside the chicken. 
Mix the remaining ingredients (olive oil, black pepper, and garlic) in with the herbs/salt/lemon mixture. I like to   put this all into a big ziplock bag with the chicken and let it sit in the refrigerator for an hour or so, but if you dont have time, you can just rub the mixture on the outside of the chicken and put it in the oven.


Put the other half of the lemon inside the chicken and place in a baking pan. I like to add about 1/2 c water to the bottom of the pan, just to put a little more moisture into the oven. 
Bake at 325 degrees for about 75 min or until the internal temperature of the chicken is 165 degrees. *The larger your chicken, the longer it will take to reach 165! This one took almost 90 min, but was well worth the wait. 


What is your favorite way to eat chicken? 

4 comments:

  1. Oh that looks SO good! I've never heard that about the herbs and salt-great tip!

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  2. Mmmmmm...looks delicious, Veronica!

    We enjoy eating chicken several different ways ~ grilled, stir-fried with veggies, soups, or even chicken cacciatore, which I just made the other night!

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  3. Yum! I will have to try this recipe. I didn't know about the salt and herbs. Good to know. I too buy whole chickens. Mine are for health reasons. I like to make my own chx broth from chickens raised naturally. I buy in bulk from the hutterites in the community and get a great price. Joel and I are hoping to get our own chickens this year and have some be meat and others be eggg layers. It should be interesting! I actually have a whole chicken simmering away as I write this. I'm making chicken noodle soup. :-)

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  4. Beer can chicken on the grill! Paul made it last night, it was delicious! We have chicken a lot (Paul raises chickens)so I'll add your recipe to my recipes to try! We have eggs a lot too, best way to start the day!

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