Roasted Lemon Chicken with Wild Mushrooms

Preheat oven to 425°F.

Rinse chicken halves in cool water and pat dry with paper towels. Sprinkle skin side with smoked paprika, kosher salt, and fresh ground pepper.

Over high heat, heat the olive oil in a heavy bottomed enamel cast iron or cast iron skillet for 45 seconds. Add seasoned chicken halves, skin side down to brown them well. This will take approximately 5 minutes.

Once the skin is golden brown, remove chicken halves from skillet and place them in a 13″ x 9″ baking dish, skin side up. Reduce the heat to medium under the skillet.

Add white wine into hot skillet and use a wooden spoon to scrape up the bits in the pan left from browning the chicken. Add lemon juice and garlic cloves and simmer, keeping on medium heat, for 5 minutes.

While the liquid is simmering, nestle lemon slices, mushrooms, and thyme all around chicken in the baking dish. I left most of the mushrooms whole—they reduce so much in size as they cook and lose moisture, I wanted to leave them in larger pieces. Feel free to chop them, if you prefer!

Pour hot liquid evenly over chicken, mushrooms, lemons, and thyme. Roast in the oven for 15 minutes then reduce heat to 400°F and cook another 45 minutes.

Remove from oven and let the chicken rest for 10 minutes before serving with generous amounts of the sauce all over your favorite part of the bird!