In all my years cooking I'd never made a roast chicken. Though I've made plenty of roast turkeys for Thanksgiving and Christmas, I had some strange notion that roasting a chicken was difficult. Nothing could be further from the truth. Carving it, however, can be hard.

There isn't much to this recipe for roast chicken, but the chicken came out perfect: golden brown and juicy. Make sure you buy a fresh chicken (I prefer Foster Farms), and that you discard the skin if you want to eat relatively light. Traditionally, the chicken is stuffed before cooking. However I find it easier to make the stuffing separately. Serve it with white wine sauce.

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Roast Chicken

Ingredients

1 chicken, 5-6 lbs.

butter

Instructions

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Remove entrails from chicken. Pat butter on chicken skin. Place chicken on broiler and put in the oven. Reduce temperature to 350 degrees. Roast about 15 minutes per pound. Baste frequently with pan drippings. Chicken is done when the skin is no longer pinkish.