Orange Roasted Chicken with Sweet Potatoes
With regards to roasting a chicken, Julia Child says “While it does not require years of training to produce a juicy, brown, buttery, crisp-skinned, heavenly bird, it does entail such a greed for perfection that one is under compulsion to hover over the bird, listen to it, above all see that it is continually basted, and that it is done just to the proper turn.”
She’s correct. I can’t think of a better way to enjoy chicken, but this takes a solid 2 hours of my time. An excellent weekend dinner.
Ingredients:
- 3-4 lb roasting chicken
- 2 tbsp butter for skin plus 1 tbsp for basting
- Salt & Pepper
Chicken Stuffing:
- 1 small onion, quartered
- 2 cloves garlic, smashed
- 1 small orange, quartered
In The Roasting Pan:
- 1 sweet potato, sliced
- 1 onion, chopped
- 1 carrot, peeled and sliced
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 425. Have a bowl of salt and pepper ready, as well as some room temperature butter and a clean work area for the raw chicken (I use a large plastic cutting board that I can immediately put into the dishwasher). Organization is the difference between this being easy vs. a major pain.
You’re going to need a lot of salt and pepper, so don’t worry about using fresh ground pepper. I like using coarse ground for this purpose. Wash the chicken thoroughly and pat it dry with paper towels. If the chicken goes into the oven dry, the skin will be brown and crispy later.
Juice half the orange and set aside. Season the inside cavity with salt and pepper and stuff with the onion, garlic and orange. Truss the chicken with butcher’s twine. Next, gently massage the skin with butter, making sure to cover the entire surface area, and then season generously with salt and pepper. Place the chicken, breast side up, in a roasting pan and put into the preheated oven for 15 minutes at 425.
After 15 minutes, remove from the oven and baste the chicken with a mixture of melted butter and the orange juice. Add the rest of the chopped vegetables to the roasting pan, reduce the heat to 350, and return to the oven. Baste the chicken and vegetables every 10-15 minutes, using the fat in the roasting pan after the butter and juice have been used up. Baste rapidly to avoid changing the oven temperature.
Continue roasting until the juices run clear, for a total of 45 minutes plus an additional 7 minutes for each pound. (In other words, a 3 1/2 pound chicken would take 45 minutes plus an additional 25 minutes, for a total 70 minutes).
Let the chicken rest for at least 15 minutes before carving. You’ll burn yourself if you carve too soon, but more importantly, you’ll let all of those beautiful juices run free. Give them time to resettle! I can’t give you tips on carving; I’m terrible. I highly recommend getting a decent cutting board with a well to catch the juices. Hopefully cooking school will give me some carving skills.
Serve with the vegetables from the roasting pan and a touch of the drippings. Discard the vegetables inside the chicken.
I definitely failed the last time I attempted to roast a chicken…cooked it too long? I need to try again…it’s starting to become a fear. the sweet potatoes look like a great addition
Give it another try, it’s so worth it. I didn’t really care for chicken until I got the hang of roasting.
Love it! The roasted chicken recipe I use is from Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall’s River Cottage Meat Book. It’s a great one too. Thanks!
This looks great. My husband loves orange chicken from Trader Joe’s. I wonder if I can trick him with this…
The sweet potatoes and orange make it a Holiday type meal. Add sage and you could serve this around Thanksgiving! Great blog and photos.
It would seem I have all these ingredients in my fridge as we speak….
What a lovely recipe! I love sweet potatoes with citrus… I had a babysitter when I was younger who made the most delicious orange juice-mashed sweet potatoes.
oh what a delicious looking chicken yummy
this looks really hearty and delicious!! perfect dish for fall/chilly days.
Yum! Chicken and sweet potatoes! You just can’t go wrong with that combo. I bet the chicken makes wonderful leftovers.
Julia is my hero. If you don’t already have it, I highly recommend her slim little volume “Julia’s Kitchen Wisdom.” For those who bascially already know how to cook, it has all those little tips that we forget; what internal temp to roast a bird to, basic recipes for mother sauce and vinaigrette, how to cook super-thick pork chops. I wouldn’t cook without it!
Sounds very good. I’ve put lemon inside before, but I love the idea of the sweet potato and carrots with orange.