Roast Chicken + Balsamic + Thyme = Not quite what I wanted

Roast chicken is tricky.

It isn't that it's particularly hard to cook, or even hard to find a recipe.

What's hard is waiting.  You don't just pull out a frozen bird from the freezer (well, ok, of course you do... you don't pull a frozen bird out of the washing machine... sheesh, you're as bad as I am, jumping on a poorly worded phrase before it's even done... which I should finish now..) and put it right in the oven.  It takes time.  For instance, our completely frozen chicken was still half frozen after a night in the fridge.  And was still frozen on the inside after a few hours on the counter.

You can't just get in the mood for a roast chicken and have it that night.  Not without external forces.  Or, y'know, going and buying one fresh (which should be considered 'external forces').

So, we knew we wanted a roast chicken, and we (mostly) got it defrosted in time... All that was needed was a recipe.

A leftover from the Anniversary meal, I still had a healthy amount of fresh thyme.  And I had hankering for balsamic.  So, to google!

I did a little search for 'balsamic roast chicken thyme' which led me to Roast Chicken and Potatoes with Balsamic-Black Pepper Sauce.

I'll lay out the recipe with pictures in a minute, but, first I want to talk about the results.

It wasn't bad.  It wasn't great.  I'd make the potatoes again, just cut them thinner so they'll crisp better.  And I'd make the gravy again.  The chicken was moist, but it just wasn't... it wasn't what I wanted.

The skin was crispy, but, all it is is salt and peppered.  I wanted, I guess, something more glazed, which, in retrospect, I really should have added to the Google search and I might have found this.  But I can just do that next time.  Lets look at the ingredients:

9 tablespoons olive oil - Organic
3/4 cup chopped shallots - Organic, Local
1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme or 1 teaspoon dried - Fresh, Organic, Local
2 tablespoons all purpose flour
3 1/2 cups chicken stock or canned low-salt chicken broth - Organic, Local, Home Made[1]
1 3/4 cups beef stock or canned beef broth - Organic, Local, Home Made[1]
2 1/2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar - Organic
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

2 pounds large red potatoes (about 6), each cut lengthwise into 1-inch wedges - Organic, Local

1 1/2 tablespoons chopped garlic - Organic, Local
1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary - Semi-Organic, Very Local[4]

1 5- to 5 1/4-pound fryer chicken, halved lengthwise, backbone removed - Organic, Local

Now, first, let me just say... 'backbone removed' is a lot harder than it sounds.  It sounded super easy to me.  Until I tried.  Part of it might very easily be the knife.  A meat cleaver will likely work alot better than my extreeeeemely sharp chef's knife[5], but still..

What's really sort of fun about this recipe is how all over the place you feel as you make it, but it all just comes together in the end.

First, heat a couple of tablespoons of oil in a large saucepan on medium high and cook the shallots and thyme until the shallots start to cook down. 

Add the flour and stir for a minute.

Gradually whisk in the stocks.  Let me tell you, when the majority of your stock is in popsicle form, there isn't a 'gradually' involved, so, much like a gas pump says to 'quickly' remove your card, it isn't a necessity.

Boil it until it is reduced to 1.5 cups, stirring occasionally.  The recipe says 20 minutes.  I kept mine going the entire time I did the rest of the recipe and it looked fine.  At the end, add the balsamic and pepper.  You can make the sauce ahead of time, cover it and refrigerate it, if you want.

Put a rack in the upper third and a rack in the lower third of your oven.  Preheat it to 375F.  Toss the potatoes, 1 tablespoon of oil, the garlic and the rosemary in a large bowl.  Put them on a sheet, rounded side down, sprinkle with salt and pepper, set aside. 

I think it's so pretty, it calls for an extreme close up.

EXTREME POTATO CLOSE UP!!!!!!!!

That's pretty.

But see?  Just doing all this stuff that seems to be completely and totally unrelated... But it's all downhill from here.

Salt and pepper the chicken.  Throw it in an oven proof skillet with the rest of the oil.  And, if you have a skillet big enough to hold two chicken halves flat *and* fit in your oven... wow.  I'm amazed.  I had to use two cast iron pans, and even then, they both didn't quite fit in the oven directly on the rack.  I had to lift them an inch so they'd not get stuck on the raised lip at the back of the rack.  But anyways, where was I?  Chicken + Oil -> Skillet/medium high heat (that would be chicken and oil in skillet, over medium high heat), skin side down.  Cook until very brown (some 15 minutes), flip and cook for 5 more minutes. 

Put the potatoes on the top rack, put the skillet(s) on the bottom rack, cook for 45 minutes or so.  Rewarm the sauce if need be (theoretically, you could *start* your sauce now and have it all come together at the end, assume you ever get a boil reduction to work as quick as recipes say they should) and cut the chicken in half yet again (if you want, we didn't).  Why don't you do that *before* cooking?  Beats me.

Arrange chicken on a platter with potatoes, serve with sauce on the side.

And again, it's tasty, but it could be so much better.  I recommend doing something with maybe throwing some carrots and other root veggies in the pan with the chicken.  Maybe a little rub or sauce on the chicken too.

Heck, I bet you could find a way to cook the potatoes *in* the cast iron skillets, with the chicken all cut into pieces already and throw those on the table and have an ultra-rustic, super pretty food service.

[1] Yes, really.  We make our own stocks.  Don't you[2]?  =)  I highly recommend Ball's Plastic Freezer Jars.  They make a 16oz version too, so, you may want to get some of each.  You might want to get some of the really small Ziploc containers too, so that you can have 1 cup, 2 cup and 1/2 cup frozen stock-sicles handy for all your cooking needs.

[2]  You have any recipes to share?  Wait, you mean you don't make your own stock[3]?

[3]  You don't?  Would you like to?  We have two or three excellent stock recipes to share. 

[4] As in 'I pulled it off the plant outside the back door.'

[5] No human blood was spilled in the making of this recipe.