Mother's Day Roasted Chicken Recipe

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there!! Especially to my mama bear. I just gotta say, THANK YOU for going for a 4th kid :) I'm not even considering one so the fact that my mom had 4 kids is just freaking phenomenal.

Every Mother's Day when I was little I would wake up and go down stairs and the siblings and I would make a huge breakfast for my mom. I'm not kidding we made everything imaginable. Eggs, oatmeal, cereal, fresh fruit, coffee, toast. If we had it we made it and like little knights on a mission to please the queen we marched upstairs with trays of food so my mom could eat breakfast in bed.

This Mother's Day I will be wishing my mama a Happy Mother's Day from afar. In her honor I'm making Chicken Roasted with Rosemary. There's actually a joke in the family how my mom makes everything lemon rosemary garlic ...but why not?! Seriously I think it's one of the most delicious flavor combos. It's vibrant, tasty, fresh and easy! Just zest a lemon, chop some fresh rosemary and garlic and throw it on anything. So thanks mom, not only for giving me life but for always making the best lemon rosemary garlic chicken ever :D!

Another thing to thank my mom for is making sure we had family dinner every night. I think eating dinner as a family is one of the most important things you can do to raise a a kiddo (or 4). IMO she raised some damn good citizens! Our family dinners are pretty legendary. Always room for another chair!

I think a lot of the foodie I am today stems from the family dinner. I learned how to set a table, how to peel vegetables, how to chop vegetables, how to make "golden rice" and my mom always had the best recipes. Some she made herself, others she followed from a cook book. She taught me things like subbing applesauce in a recipe for butter. I learned that blackened bananas made the best banana bread, the right way to check the temperature of cooked meat. The list goes on!

There was really nothing like sitting around the table with my siblings and parents...and dogs begging for scraps. It's not like it was always this perfect scene of happiness and sunshine. Oh no, I've cried many times at the family dinner table. There were arguments, and I without a doubt had my fair share of temper tantrums. I once threw an orange at my dad because he told me I ate rabbit in Sicily. But you know, thats just what families do! Laugh, cry, talk to each other, ignore each other. It's tough love <3.

But it teaches you how to be a person and how to handle conflict. Obviously I know better than to throw citrus at people in my adult days! Overall, I think the family dinner is just one of the most amazing, taken for granted traditions. I would like to bring that back and just say thank you again to my mom and my dad (but he gets his day in June) for doing that for us.

Chicken Roasted with Rosemary | Pollo Arrosto con Rosmarino

Recipe from The Food of Southern Italy by Carlo Middione

Chicken is not used in the South as much as it is used in the North of Italy. This dish is reserved for special times. It is heaven and utterly simple to make.

Menu Suggestions: Serve the chicken with Mushrooms in Parchment and follow with a bowl of fresh fruit.

Wine: Monica di Sardegna

Ingredients:

1 roasting chicken (3 1/2 pounds) dried

3 medium sized garlic cloves, peeled and crushed

1 medium carrot, washed and cut into small pieces

1 stalk celery, washed and cut into small pieces

Half a medium sized onion, peeled and cut into quarters

Salt and pepper to taste

1/4 cup virgin olive oil

5 4-inch springs of fresh rosemary

1 lemon, cut in half

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Put the garlic, carrot, celery, and onion into the cavity of the chicken with salt and pepper, 1 tablespoon of olive oil, and 3 springs of rosemary. Place the rest on the bird later. Truss the bird for appearance so it looks neat and tidy. Rub the chicken all over with 2 tablespoons of the oil. Add more salt, massage the bird again very well. Tuck one of the remaining 2 sprigs of rosemary into each wing, so that they are close t the body. These outside sprigs may well burn up during the roasting if they are too exposed, so tuck them almost under the wings. but in any case, do not worry because even burned they will give that characteristic rosemary flavor.

Add about 1 tablespoon of oil to the roasting pan and spread it around. Then lay the chicken on its side to roasted for the first 15 minutes. Turn it over to cook on the other side for 15 minutes. Then turn it on its back, which will mean the breast is up, for 1 hour more. Baste the chicken with the juices and oil using a turkey baster or large spoon each turn.

Continue to roast the chicken until it is cooked, basting as often as you can. When it is done it should have an internal temperature of 165 F at the thickest part of the thigh meat. Don't overcook it or else it will come out dry.

Let the chicken rest in its juices for 10 minutes and then remove it to a heated dish and kept in a warm place. Skim off and discard most of the fat from the top of the liquid remaining in the roasting pan. thoroughly scrape the pan and any bits of skin and pour them along with any other pan juices into a frying pan. Cook the juices on high heat for about 2 minutes to reduce them a bit and then strain them through a sieve into a hot gravy boat. By the time you have done this, the chicken will have rested about 20 minutes. If you skip this step (which I did) just wait 20 minutes until after you take the bird out of the over. Carve the chicken and serve it on warm plates. Spoon on pan juices.

#chicken #recipe #family #mothersday