I had never actually done one of the most basic cooking skills: roasting a chicken. Rather than go with the normal roasting method, I looked through one of my favorite recipes and decided to try a high roast chicken. In order to get the skin crispy (and keep the bird from overcooking), they recommend the high roast method by butterflying the bird.

Anyways, I brined the bird, then washed it and patted it dry very thoroughly.

I tried my best to butterfly the chicken (I now have a vague idea of what to do, though as you can see below I cut the wrong part by accident in the beginning).

The backbone is what’s hanging out to the right. For the most part I used scissors to do the surgery.

Following the recipe, I used a broiler pan and cut up some potatoes to put underneath on the bottom to soak up some of the grease (and by grease, I mean great chicken flavor).

I spread some butter mixed with some herbs into the skin and then seasoned the outside with salt and pepper.

Roasting for a while on high heat, we got a nicely browned bird.

Which I proceeded to cut up into pieces (again, not a fantastic job) and serve.

The let’s not forget about the potatoes, which were amazingly delicious.

Overall the bird was pretty juicy and the potatoes were really good, having received a lot of flavor from the chicken drippings. I just had roast chicken at a restaurant a few days ago, and I can say the one I made was much better.

It was a really easy recipe and also a really cheap dinner. It’s definitely something I’d do again.

I think next time I may try the “Zuni” way of roasting a chicken, which is instead of brining it, you season it generously with a lot of salt and let it sit in the fridge for 1-3 days. This is similar to brining, but it also dries out the skin so it’s pretty tasty and very crispy.