Roast Chicken with Balsamic Glaze
Roast Chicken with Balsamic Glaze
A delicious addition to your roast chicken collection that will have you making this again and again.
I cannot get enough of roast chicken. It always looks so delicious, it makes me think of big family dinners where the mashed potatoes and stuffing are plentiful. Leftovers are the best to make a big pot of soup or even a Chicken Pot Pie/ Shepherd Pie.
I am always on the lookout for a new recipe to add to my collection and while flipping through the Chelsea Market Cookbook by Michael Phillips with Rick Rodgers, I stumbled across this recipe. In the past, I have made a balsamic marinade for chicken that I absolutely love, so this one intrigued me.
I will definitely make this again, but next time I will most certainly do a better job at reading the directions fully before proceeding. I was in auto pilot mode on how I normally make a herbed roasted chicken and immediately put the herb mixture under the skin and on top of the skin. But the original recipe has you putting the herb mixture under the skin, then rubbing the oil and balsamic mixture on top before the herbs. This makes TOTAL sense, but alas, I pulled an Amy and didn’t read directions and lost some of my herb mixture with the pouring of the liquids over the chicken.
The fresh herbs I had on hand were a big fat ZERO, so this was made with all dried herbs. Still delicious, but next time I will make it as the original recipe details with fresh herbs.
Roast Chicken with Balsamic Glaze by Dominick Coyne
Adapted from Chelsea Market Cookbook by Michael Phillips with Rick Rodgers
Serves 4-6
1 roasting chicken
1 tsp dried basil
1 tsp dried rosemary
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp dried ground sage
2 tsp kosher salt
½ tsp freshly ground black pepper
2 tbsp honey
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
2 tbsp olive oil
1 large yellow onion, quartered
Directions
Heat oven to 450 deg with the rack in the center of the oven.
Pat the chicken dry with paper towels and let it set uncovered at room temperature for 20 minutes.
Grab three small bowls. In the first one, combine all the herbs. In the second bowl, combine the salt & pepper. In the third bowl, mix the honey and vinegar together.
Carefully separate the skin from the meat by slipping your fingers between the skin and flesh of breast and thighs. Try not to tear the skin (I failed)!
Rub half of the herb mixture under the skin all over the flesh.
This is where I didn’t follow directions, I will detail how I made the recipe and it still turned out delightful. Grab the cookbook to follow original directions.
Rub the remainder of the herb mixture on the outside of the chicken.
Season the cavity of the chicken with half of the salt & pepper mixture.
Stuff one quarter of the onion in the cavity.
Rub the oil all over the outside of the chicken.
To create an edible and delicious “rack” for the chicken to roast on, place separated onion layers in the bottom of the roasting pan.
Place the chicken on top of the “rack”.
Slowly pour the balsamic/honey mixture over the top of the chicken and sprinkle chicken with the remainder of the salt & pepper mixture.
Place chicken in the oven and roast at 450 deg for 10 minutes.
Reduce heat to 400 deg and continue to roast until chicken reaches 165 deg. This should take around 1 ¼ hour.
Rest chicken for 15 minutes before cutting into.
This chicken hit the spot on a cool fall night. The description in the book says that “you will keep going back to the platter for bits of the juicy meat and sweet skin” and they were not lying! This was a sweet herby gem. Those onions! Can we talk about those onions, sweet, delicious and some were perfectly caramelized.
The compliments that came out of the rest of the family were plentiful. Both of them went back for seconds commenting how yummy this was.
I can’t wait to make this again with some creamy mashed potatoes and a gravy made from the drippings!