Cooking with Dr. Monkey

Today's episode:

Roast Chicken

I love to roast things in this clay pot roaster that Sparky's sister got us a few years ago, especially whole chickens. In order to use it though I have to soak it in cold water for ten minutes. Also I don't pre-heat the oven when using the roaster because it needs to warm up gradually as the oven heats up.
As my clay roaster soaked up the cold water I cut up about 7 cloves of garlic, a third of an onion, and one third of a red pepper. Next I ground about a tablespoon and a half of fresh black pepper. To that I added a tea spoon of sweet Spanish paprika and a tea spoon and a half of sea salt. I then tossed in my garlic and I poured in a glug of extra virgin olive oil. I mixed it all around and then I set it aside.My pot was ready so I took it out of the sink and I drained the water. I then opened my chicken. I like using organic chicken because organic food is best for your body in most every case. If I can't find a reasonably priced organic bird, I try to use ones that have been fed a vegetarian diet and have been raised without growth hormones.I took most of the skin off the chicken because that's where most of the fat is on a chicken and then I laid the chicken in the bottom of the roasting pan.Next I slapped the spice and oil mixture all over the chicken and then I added the onion and red pepper. I put the lid on it and I stuck it in a cold oven I then turned the oven on to 375 degrees and I left the chicken in for one hour and forty five minutes. At about halfway though the cooking time I opened the pot to check on the chicken and I turned it over in the pan. And yes, at all times when I was handling the hot roasting pan I did indeed use my keen new potholders.When my timer went off I pulled the pan out and I checked my chicken. It was indeed done. I took the chicken out of the pan and I poured all that nice liquid that also contained the cooked garlic, the spices, the onion, and the red pepper into a little sauce pan.

I mashed everything in that pan up and I added a couple tablespoons of flour and I stirred it in. The resultant gravy was superb.

During the last half hour that the chicken had cooked I made a spinach salad and some mashed potatoes. I plated everything and I poured some gravy over the potatoes and the chicken. I served it all with a few slices of sourdough bread we got from Scratch Foodworks yesterday. It was a delicious meal to have on a wet soggy cool night.