Italian Roast Chicken: Best Deli Flavors In A Flash

La Cuisinière

10 years ago

We may earn money or products from the companies mentioned in this post. Merci!

Italian Roast Chicken – Deli flavors in a flash! Roast chicken is on the menu for dinner tonight and I’ll prepare a few meals for Mom including a quick and easy Potato and Leek Soup.

It’s a “no particular recipe in mind” kind of day but I’ve been on a guilt trip all week thanks to a bundle of fresh parsley from which only a few snippets were taken – when fresh.

Today feels like one of those days when you just want to cook. Well, at least I do. All day.

It’s Easy To Dry Fresh Herbs

Since I bought the fresh parsley, the bulk of it has been sitting in a colander on the kitchen counter. Needless to say, leaving fresh herbs out on the counter is not something I do often.

I did it once, deliberately and with success, with a pack of fresh bay leaves.

As I watched the parsley dry, I wondered what would happen if I allowed other fresh herbs (I use quite a bit of fresh rosemary, thyme and sage) to air dry. Without the use of a dehydrator. The parsley became the test subject.

Would herbs lose all their flavor?
Would I be able to get them dry enough to store in zip lock bags?
What would the shelf life be?
Would they retain the same flavor as when they were fresh?

Parsley & Garlic Marinade

Then it hit me like the proverbial ton of bricks!

I would brine the chicken in a pungent parsley based marinade while I prepared the other dishes.

The parsley air dried to perfection and smells just as good as fresh.

I grabbed the bunch carefully between both hands and applied just a little bit of pressure. The parsley crumbled into flakes.

It was easy to crumble the larger flakes into smaller pieces before adding the rest of the brine ingredients.

Pictured above are the results of the “experiment”.

To a well used “vintage” mixing bowl (used by my mother in law to prepare chicken salads for her Farmer’s Market table) I added the following ingredients.

Italian Roast Chicken

Author: La Cuisinière
Prep Time: 2 hours
Cook Time: 90 minutes
Total Time: 3 hours 30 minutes
Yield: 1 whole chicken 1x
Category: Main Dish
Method: Roast
Cuisine: Home Style

Description

“Do It Yourself” deli chicken! Create your own seasoning and make it better than the store bought version!

Scale

Ingredients

3/4 cup of Colavita® olive oil
1/4 of Holland House® white cooking wine
1 1/2 teaspoons of sea salt
1 tablespoon of mashed fresh garlic
1 tablespoon of Weber’s® Kick”n Chicken seasoning
1 tablespoon of McCormick® Italian herbs
2 tablespoons of my dried crumbled parsley
1 (5 1/2 pounds) chicken

Instructions

Pat the chicken dry and place in the bowl. Roll it around in the brine until evenly coated.
Cover with Press’n Seal® film and allow to marinate for several hours.
Turn the chicken every 30 minutes until ready to roast in a hot oven.
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Cut a piece of foil large enough to make a “tent” for the chicken. Spray one side of the foil with Crisco® canola oil so it will not stick to the chicken.
Roast at 400 degrees for 15 minutes.
After 15 minutes, loosely cover the chicken with the foil, lower the oven temperature to 350 degrees and roast for another 45 minutes.
Remove the foil for the last 20 minutes.
Total cooking time depends on the weight of the chicken.
I usually add 1/2 cup of water to the pan drippings and baste regularly throughout the roasting period. Add more water, 1/2 cup at a time, as it evaporates.