Photo by Dan Robb
Before the new year started I decided I wanted to cook more and not just cook more but make new recipes, experiment, challenge myself in the kitchen. I'm not necessarily making more complicated recipes, but I've been actively making new dishes each week.
The best discovery so far has been the recipes from Onions, Etc. by Kate Winslow and Guy Ambrosino. While I do not know them personally I feel connected to them in a way as they also worked at the Anna Tasca Lanza Cooking School in Sicily. Everyone who has worked there, whether we have met in person or only through social media feels like family in a way with the school a special place for food and community connects us all.
I bought the book a year ago when it was released and loved flipping through it, drooling over the recipes and photos but then set it aside, at the end of the year I had not made one recipe from the book.
I started to make a few recipes like the sheet pan of harissa marinated chicken with chickpeas and onions, rajas con crema, warm onion bacon salad, the Cuban lime marinated steak and onions and more. Every recipe was a winner, and ones that I can see myself continually coming back to. But this 20/20 roast chicken takes the cake, while the titles refers to the quantity of shallots and garlic, it definitely scores 20/20. It's a simple roast chicken recipe but the chicken is spatchcocked making the skin wonderfully crispy due to the skin all being exposed to the heat and moist with a delicious bubbling sauce of wine and the chicken juices reducing together with the shallots, garlic and thyme.
20/20 Chicken
Adapted from Onions, Etc. by Kate Winslow & Guy Ambrosino
The recipe is mostly kept the same from the cookbook with the exception of using regular salt than chive salt (which is a sub recipe from the book) and the addition of fresh thyme sprigs. There aren't many dishes I don't add fresh thyme too, I never bother with taking the leaves off the stem, I always add the sprigs whole and let the leaves fall off and infuse and remove the stems from the dish before serving.
20 shallots, peeled and halved lengthwise
20 garlic cloves peeled
1 - 4 lb whole chicken
8 sprigs fresh thyme
1/2 cup dry white wine or dry vermouth (I recommend a Chardonnay which will also pairs wonderfully with the finished meal)
Olive oil
Salt & pepper
Preheat oven to 325 °F degrees. Toss the peeled garlic cloves and halved shallots in a bowl with a little olive oil to coat, season with salt and pepper. In a medium to large cast iron or heavy enamel frying pan, spread the shallots and garlic evenly on the bottom of the pan, top with whole thyme sprigs.
Spatchcock the chicken, place chicken on a cutting board, breast side down, with a pair of kitchen shears, cut along the backbone on each side, removing the backbone (set the backbone aside to make stock). Open the chicken and tuck the wings behind the breasts, tuck the legs in so that the bottoms and the chicken is as flat as possible. Season with a touch of olive oil and generously with salt and pepper all over.
Set prepared chicken on top of the bed of shallots and garlic. Roast for 45 minutes, then pour over wine, return to oven. Roast for another 45 minutes until the skin is crisp and golden brown and the chicken is cooked through. This is not absolutely necessary but in the last twenty minutes of cooking, start basting the chicken with the sauce to achieve an even more brown and crispy skin.
Once the chicken is cooked, remove from oven, let rest for 10 minutes. Serve with boiled baby potatoes or mashed potatoes and other classic roast chicken accompaniments liked roasted carrots or brussel sprouts, depending on what vegetables are in season.
I prefer to eat the roasted garlic cloves whole but the recipe suggests to mash the garlic cloves to thicken the sauce.