Viking Chicken

This recipe is pretty awesome for new parents, as long as carving a chicken is feasible. You basically throw odds and ends from your crisper drawer and pantry into your biggest baking dish, add a chicken and throw it in the oven for 1 or 2 hours. There’s something kind of primal about it, hence the name of the dish! I found the recipe on The Kitchn. I ended up using mostly root vegetables, along with some mushrooms and an apple (I should have cut the root vegetables smaller and the apple bigger than in my pictures, and if I’d added green veggies like at the link, it would have looked even better). The Engineer found the chicken very soft and agreed that it was really juicy – as a matter of fact, I had a lot more liquid in the bottom of the pan than I thought, but I didn’t have time to make a gravy with it. This makes 4 to 6 servings.

3- to 4-lb. whole chicken
1 small lemon or clementine
several sprigs fresh rosemary
1 to 2 large yellow onions
3 to 4 whole firm fruits such as apples, pears, or quince
1 to 2 lbs. firm or crisp vegetables such as carrots, Brussels sprouts, potatoes, sweet potatoes, asparagus, mushrooms, or garlic cloves
olive oil
unsalted butter
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Heat the oven to 450 °F. Set a rack in the lower-middle of the oven.

Remove the chicken from its packaging and thoroughly pat it dry. Place the lemon or clementine inside the cavity along with the whole rosemary sprigs, and truss the legs together.

Create a bed of fruits and vegetables in a roasting pan to raise the chicken off the bottom. Chop the onions and a few pieces of fruit into rings, and scatter them over the bottom of the pan. If you're using asparagus or carrots, lay them side-by-side on top of the onions in the center of the pan. Sprinkle the vegetables and fruit generously with salt and black pepper.

Set the chicken on top of the bed of fruits and vegetables. Roughly chop and scatter any remaining fruits and vegetables around the chicken.

Drizzle the chicken and all the fruits and vegetables with olive oil and sprinkle generously with sea salt. Set a few pats of butter atop the chicken, if desired.

Place the chicken into the oven and immediately lower the oven temperature to 400°F. Roast for 1 to 1 ½ hours, until the vegetables are cooked, chicken's skin is golden, and the chicken registers 165 °F in the thigh (this took 2 hours in my case).

Transfer the chicken to a cutting board and tent with foil. Let the chicken rest for 15 minutes before carving. While you're waiting, toss the vegetables with the pan juices and transfer to a serving bowl. If desired, make a simple gravy with the leftover bits in the pan. Serve while the chicken and vegetables are warm. Leftovers will keep refrigerated for up to 4 days.