A Simple Roasted Chicken Recipe From Sean Brock

I did this earlier this week. It is excellent. From "Heritage", the pan sauce is so delectable , it's reason enough to pull off this dish.

Ingredients

Garlic Confit

6 large garlic cloves
1 t sugar
1 T kosher salt (I used sea salt)
1 t fresh pepper
2 T evoo

Chicken

Whole chicken, halved
Kosher salt and pepper
1/2 canola oil


Pan Sauce

2 cups good chicken stock (I cheated with Better than Bouillon)
1 T ap flour
1 cup flat leaf parsley, chiffonade cut
Juice of a lemon, plus some zest


Method

Make the confit. Heat oven to 400. Make a foil pouch. Add all ingredients, seal and roast 25-30 minutes. Set aside.

For the chicken, split into halves. Brock removed the wings (I only took off the tips). Season well with salt and pepper. He also cut out the back bone. I left it on one side.

Heat two iron skillets to smoking point. Add 1/4 cup oil to each. Just as oil smokes, add the chicken, skin down. Place a heavy skillet over each halve to improve surface contact. Cut fire to med. Sear 5 to 6 minutes. Flip chickens and pop in the oven. Cook until you hit 155 degrees in the thigh, chicken is well browned, and juices run clear. His cook time for a 3 pound bird was estimated to be 20+ minutes. My time with a 4.5 pound hormone blasted behemoth was closer to 35 minutes . Pull , remove bird to a pan to rest.


For the sauce, combine the cooking juices into one skillet and set aside. Heat the "dry" skillet until it sizzles and deglaze with half the stock (a cup). Scrape well with a whisk as you bring to a boil and reduce the volume by half, 4 to 5 minutes. Add the remaining stock and set aside.

Place the other skillet on high heat. Whisk in the flour (I used closer to 2 T). Make a brown roux, scraping the bottom of the pan . Whisk in the stock mixture, gradually. Emulsify the sauce well. Chop the garlic roughly and add with a bit of the residual oil. Add the lemon juice, zest and parsley, removing it from the heat and pouring up for service. The sauce should coat the back of a spoon. Check the seasonings, too, though it's likely perfect. Awesome sauce to be ladled over each serving of chicken.