Sunday Dinner

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Goat Cheese and Salami-Stuffed Dates

Butterflied Roast Chicken with Warm Bread and Arugula Salad

Tarte au Citron

This is a 3-C Sunday dinner: cheese, chicken, and chocolate citrus. Tonight, I will focus on sharing the middle C with you. Most of you know about my love for a good Roast Chicken, and this recipe definitely gets a 💗 vote from me. It was inspired by San Francisco's  Zuni Cafe's popular dish. I keep the overall salad components (chicken, bread, and arugula) the same, but I use my own vinaigrette recipe because that is how I like it.

Butterflying a chicken is a simple process.  You need a good pair of poultry shears to cut away the backbone (save the backbone for homemade stock) and a strong hand to press the breastbone when it is skin-side up. This flattens the breasts to the same thickness as the legs, allowing the chicken to roast in a shorter amount of time with even browning all over. 

The neat part about this recipe is that the bread pieces are placed under and around the chicken while it roasts.  This allows the bread to soak up all of those tasty chicken drippings. Once the chicken is done, the bread cubes will be somewhat crunchy but mostly warm and soft. As delicious as that is, I prefer a crunchier texture, so I place the cubes back into the oven while the chicken rests. I like to use my Homemade No-Knead Country Bread for the bread cubes, but any quality country bread will work well.

I must point out the method for the chicken.  It is a dry brine. That means the skin is gently separated from the meat and seasoned. The salt penetrates and tenderizes the dark and white meat, keeping it moist and juicy.  The skin, in return, stays nice and crispy. (I shared images of the skin separation process on a whole turkey in the first three step-by-step photos post HERE.)  It is preferable that the dry brining of the chicken be done 24 hours ahead, but if you are short on time, you will still get excellent results by dry brining the bird for at least 2 hours. 

I use baby arugula for the salad, and although it is widely available in the markets these days, you could substitute it with another sturdy green like Lacinato kale, curly kale, or even baby spinach. (Remember to massage the kale with the vinaigrette to soften the leaves!) They will all work nicely with the vinaigrette, a simple red wine vinaigrette flavored with garlic and shallot. However, I like to take the flavor profile of the vinaigrette to the next level by adding any accumulated chicken juices from the cutting board after it has rested. This is another winner-winner chicken dinner! Happy Sunday!

Roast Chicken

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Do you have a New Year resolution? I don't normally take part in this cultural practice, but this year I have one or two for TGG.  

The first one is something that I have been wanting to change for quite sometime (almost 11 years to be exact).  September 19, 2010 was my first post published (you can read it HERE).  I was new to the blogging world, new to writing and completely new to photography, but I was most certainly not new to my passion for the culinary arts.  For that post, I wanted to share our/my most beloved recipe; a simple roast chicken.  I don't think I have made anything more in my kitchen than a roast chicken.  As you know, it has been featured on my Sunday dinner menus countless times, but I make it more often during the week with a simple salad or to use in another recipe.

What is my resolution, you ask? I am finally getting around to updating the photo.  I was so proud of the original at the time, but now it just makes me cringe! To be honest, it is still hard to take a picture of a roast chicken. I will not take down that original post because it has a lot of meaning to me and I think it is important to have it as a reminder as to how far I have come along behind the lens, even though I will continue to learn about everything I am passionate about.

As far as the recipe, I have not changed a thing.  This is the one.  But, having said that, feel free to change or omit the garlic and herb at the end.  Maybe you want just chicken with salt and pepper.  Maybe you want to try a different dried spice blend.  As I always say- Make it for you, make it your own. Making those changes will only affect the flavor profile of the final product.  It is the method that is the key to the perfect roast chicken. Here's to more good recipes to share in 2022! 

P.S. Once you carve and pick off all of that beautiful meat, DO NOT toss out the carcass! I'll show you what to do with it.