Roasted Lemony Garlic Chicken

Preheat your oven to 425F. Wash off your chicken and get the crud out of his cavity. Get out 2 bowls. Take your lemons and grate the rind into a bowl. Grate all the rind off both lemons into a bowl (well, just the outside of the rind, not the icky white part). Reserve the lemons.

Now, take about half of the rind and put it in another bowl. Mince up 3 cloves of the garlic. Put half in one bowl and half in the other. Add half of the sea salt and the pepper to one bowl, and half of the sea salt and the pepper to the other bowl. To one bowl, mash in the softened butter. To the other bowl, pour in the olive oil. Set the olive oil bowl aside.

Once the butter is all smashed with the lemon and the garlic, loosen the chicken skin, and shove some of the butter mixture between the skin and the meat. Make sure you get it all over. Rub some on the outside. Rub that chicken down with your butter mixture.

Cut up the lemons into big hunks and shove them into the chicken cavity. Give the remaining garlic cloves a good smash with the back of your knife and shove them into the chicken cavity as well.

Now put your chicken in the oven, in a large pot with no lid. Cook for 30 minutes. Turn the oven down to 375F (do not remove your chicken!). Put a lid on your chicken if it’s getting brown. Cook your chicken for another 1 1/2 hours.

In the meantime, while your chicken is cooking, slice your potatoes in half and then toss them with the olive oil mixture in the other bowl. At this point, you can either turn them out onto a baking sheet or you can throw them in with the chicken. Either way, they need to roast for 45 minutes, so throw them in the oven, with the chicken, when you have about 45 minutes left. If you put them on a baking sheet, make sure you have the cut sides down so they get all crispy and delicious.

Serve with a green salad, and if you are like me, chicken gravy made out of the juice from the bottom of the pan.

Delicious!