Roast Chicken and Root Vegetables

Everyone has heard of brunch, but I feel like Linner is a meal very specific to my family.

It’s pretty evident that it’s a combination of Lunch and Dinner, but it’s honestly a little more than that.

My Mom loves Linner, if it’s the weekend (or a holiday) we’d do an activity in the morning, get home and make a late lunch. The meal in the afternoon was the afternoon’s entertainment. We sit down around 3 and eat, talk, and drink wine for hours.

Usually this is followed this up with a shift into the living room for a movie.

Some of my best memories come from sitting around the table with my parents, as I’ve gotten older the only difference is maybe the wine consume. It’s also an excuse to have a big roast meal, but not be doing in right before bed.

So I try to carry on this tradition and introduce my friends to it. Today’s Linner - Lemon Garlic Roast Chicken with roasted root vegetables.

1 Small Chicken

Lemon

Garlic

Variety of Root Vegetables

Salt

Butter

I pulled the chicken out of the fridge and let it warm up a bit, while I preheated the oven to 425*.

Today I pulled a variety of beets, some parsnips, carrots, and a turnip. I peeled and chopped all of the veggies into roughly 1 inch cubes. The important things is that they’re all about the same size. I peeled 6 cloves of garlic and tossed all the veggies and whole garlic gloves with a little olive oil and salt.

Then blend softened butter with 2 cloves of garlic minced and the zest of 1 lemon. I stuffed the butted under the skin of the chicken, if you’re having trouble you can slip a spoon between the skin and meat to separate it. Once I’ve done that I sprinkle some kosher salt on the skin.

Then I place the vegetables into a roasting pan, and place the chicken on top.

Then into the oven, 10 minutes at 425, then a lower the over to 375 and cook the chicken for about 20 minutes per pound.

Once it’s cooked I pull the chicken out to reset for at least half the cooking time.

Since the chicken was pretty small this time, I put the roasting pan with vegetables back into the over and turned it back up to 425, to get a little more colour on them.

Once the chicken was rested I pulled the breasts and legs off and placed it back into the dish to serve.

Sidebar: I took the back and wings and placed them into a pot of water and placed it on the stove. Boil for 45 minutes, and then strain it for some delicious chicken stock.

Then sit down, open some wine and enjoy.

Today I also served a Loaf of Sourdough bread from Brick St Bakery and a bottle of Liberty School Cabernet.