Homecookin’: Roast Chicken Spice Adventure

May 17, 2010

NYC Food Guy is proud to present another great recipe from Homecookin’ contributor Spice Jonze’n. If you’d like to contribute your recipes to the site e-mail [email protected]. Take it away Spice…

Sometimes we find inspiration from a random encounter in the streets of New York. After picking up some ipek, a dried version of the Turkish Maras pepper, at Essex Street Market in the Lower East Side, I stumbled upon SOS Chefs on Avenue B b/t 6th & 7th Street. I was immediately overwhelmed by the plethora of spices available but fortunately the helpful staff allowed me to smell anything I liked while they explained the origination and usages for each spice. I ended up walking out with cumin seeds, zataar, sumac, and fenugreek. And I knew exactly what I was going to make with them: roast chicken.

Ingredients

1 Whole Chicken, gizzards removed
Olive Oil
Salt/Pepper
Red Pepper Spice
Whole Cumin Seeds
Sumac (optional if you can find it)
2 Lemons
3-4 Cloves Garlic
1 Fennel bulb
Mortar and Pestle (for grinding the roasted cumin seeds)

Preparing the Cumin Seeds

In a pan, toast the whole cumin seeds; I used about 5 or 6 tablespoons of seeds. The amount depends on the size of your bird (this one was almost 8 lbs).

After you have toasted the seeds for about 5 minutes, or just when you can smell a toasted cumin aroma coming from the pan, remove into your pestle. Take your mortar and grind up the seeds to release the deliciousness trapped inside.

Chicken Preparation

Take your chicken and give it a good rinse then dab it dry with a paper towel and place in your roasting pan.

Now we get to have a little fun. We need to separate the skin from the meat very carefully with our hands. We do not want to tear the chicken skin while we separate. Use your hands and gently work the skin away from the meat.

Let’s get dirty. Rub a generous amount of olive oil all over the skin of the chicken and inside the skin onto the meat.

Now, start with the ground cumin seeds and spread on the inside and outside of the skin, making sure to get some inside of the cavity as well. Now repeat with the salt, pepper, ipek, and sumac.

Cut one lemon into a few wedges and stuff into the cavity along with the garlic. Take the remaining lemon and squeeze some juice over the top of the bird.

Now close the opening by pulling the skin together and cinching it closed with some toothpicks. Chop up your fennel bulb and add that to the pan.

Roasting

Preheat the oven to 350^oF and place the chicken in the center of the oven. Cooking time will vary depending on the oven and size of the bird. You want to make sure the meat is cooked to about 165-170^oF before you take it out to set. This took about 3 hours for my 8 pound bird including time needed to remove it from the oven to baste approximately 4-5 times.

As you can see, the skin split apart on its own, but this didn’t prove an issue. The meat turned out incredibly flavorful, moist and tender. Let rest for about 10-15 minutes before carving and serving.