Peculiar name for a recipe, I know. But there’s a great story to accompany it that must be told. While I attended culinary school, and interned at a local restaurant I lived in an apartment in Florence, Italy. It was located about a block away from the beautiful Piazza Santa Crocce. Seeing as most of my time was spent in and or around food, I spent very little time actually cooking, preparing, or eating food at my own apartment.

In Florence, and perhaps other parts of Italy as well, their roasted chicken is so amazingly juicy it’s out of this world.  A plan was set forth, I would create my version of this chicken in my apartment, taste it, compare it, and then go eat my favorite again and perfect it until I was satisfied with “my copy”.  On the first mission juicy roasted chicken, I was home in the late afternoon my roommate asleep in the other room for her afternoon siesta; I was happily prepping in the kitchen. Let me set the details up quickly:

• Our apartment was on the 5^th floor (that means 68 stairs to climb)
• It faced into a courtyard of 4 other buildings
• The apartment building directly across from us and two floors down had this cat, which periodically liked to nap on the windowsill.

The windows of these buildings are such that both windows open outward; in this case they happened to be open. As soon as I set my chicken into the oven I hear this terrible cat meowing/screaming coming from the courtyard. I look out to investigate, the owners of the cat are cooing down at their cat, which has now fallen into the courtyard.

To make a long story short the cat continued at the maddening cry…mind you we are approaching 60 minutes of this racket. After many a try at the neighbors below to gain access to the private courtyard, the fire department was called. They arrived and positioned a ladder down into the courtyard and a brave firefighter dawned a cat carrier as he went at a now, snarling cat.

Ding!

My chicken was finished, I removed it to let it rest for a few minutes, but in reality, I was engrossed in this drama unfolding in my courtyard I could not have been torn away but for ten seconds to take the chicken out and turn off the oven. Finally, the cat was returned to its owners. The windows were never opened again where the cat slept. Oh and how could I forget! The Italian Grandmas loved to shout at anyone who was too noisy for their liking, so naturally, someone was spouting off this entire time while they tried to retrieve the cat.

The photos were a bit rushed for 3 reasons:

1. Laura and I were hungry
2. Laura and I were hungry
3. It was getting dark

Granted, you may say, two of those reasons are the same. Nonetheless they’re the most important driving factor as to why the photos were a bit rushed.

Call the Fire Department! The cats stuck–Juicy Roasted Chicken.

Serving Size depends on the size of the chicken. This exact recipe feeds approximately two.

|Gather

1 whole chicken for roasting (I used one large enough to serve two people with a little left over, but we are chicks, the same reasoning cannot be applied to feed dudes)

½ white onion, sliced

4 OZ white mushrooms, sliced

5 good sized yellow potatoes

3 Lemons (mine were a little larger then a golf ball)

Dried rosemary

Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO)

Salt & Pepper

|Create

Pre-heat the oven to 325°F. Remove the innards of the chicken. Wash and slice lemons and lightly sprinkle rosemary over the lemon slices and stuff inside the chicken. Take ½ a lemon and squeeze juice over them chicken. Wash and slice the yellow potatoes scallop style.  Distribute the potatoes, onions, and mushrooms in the bottom of a large class pan. Place the chicken on top of the veggies and drizzle olive oil over the whole dish follow with salt and pepper. Cover the chicken with a tin foil tent and bake for 45 minutes. Remove the tent and check on the chicken. Bake the chicken for an additional 15 minutes until the skin is crispy. Remove the chicken and let rest 5 minutes.

Note: depending on the size and power of your oven it may take more or less time to fully cook the chicken than mentioned above. Also you may have to add a bit more olive oil if your chicken or veggies begin to appear a bit dried out.

|Enjoy

After the chicken has rested slice and serve with the veggies from the roast. We also paired some unsweetened apple sauce and a piece of baguette with our meal; great fall flavors.

A Sheriff of the Kitchen Original