Springtime Chicken

Oh, the hopes I had for this chicken.

As soon as I added rosemary and lemons to my shopping cart I knew I wanted to make some variation of rosemary and lemon chicken. I don’t use fresh rosemary too often, and with the gorgeous weather we’ve been having lately, it seemed the perfect recipe.

I planned it all out while I was on my run yesterday afternoon – most roast chicken recipes are served with potatoes, but since I don’t really eat potatoes anymore, I decided I was going to add artichoke hearts and fresh zucchini for a perfect springtime dish. How could it possibly go wrong?!

So, I gathered my ingredients and started to chop, listening to some snazzy salsa music on pandora radio as I danced around my kitchen, envisioning the gorgeous crispy brown, flavorful chicken that was to be my dinner.

You’ll notice I forgot the zucchini…even though it was definitely sitting out on my counter with the rest of my ingredients. But other than, it looks good, right? Chicken and shallots and garlic and lemon and fresh rosemary…and a healthy dose of white wine. Beautiful!

I popped it into a 400 degree oven for close to an hour.

Not quite the delicious vision I had been hoping for.

Remember the “healthy dose” of white wine I mentioned? I may have been a little too heavy handed, because I think there was too much liquid in the pan for the chicken (the legs, especially) to really brown properly. I even peeked my head in fifteen minutes into the cooking and took out about a half cup of liquid, but that didn’t help too much. Next time, I will definitely be more conservative.

The breasts got nice and brown…but I confess, I threw the whole thing under the broiler for a couple of minutes to see what it would do. So, because it was going on 1900 and I was getting pretty hungry, I just decided to call it a day.

Overall, this tasted pretty good, but next time I’d tweak the seasonings some more. I only squeezed part of the lemon over the chicken before it cooked, and my only seasonings were salt, pepper, and rosemary. It was good, but not great, and definitely not the flavor I’d imagined in my head. For my first attempt, it wasn’t bad — but next time (and there will be a next time), it’s ON!

For those of you adventurous enough to try this (and want to see if you can do it better than I can), here’s what I did:

I used:

1 package assorted chicken (2lbs approx)

1 lemon, chopped into wedges

1 shallot, sliced

1 can artichoke hearts

10 cloves garlic, peeled

fresh rosemary

white wine (about 1/4-1/2 cup)

olive oil, salt, pepper

What I did:

In a roasting pan – add your chicken, shallots, artichoke hearts, garlic, rosemary, and I’d recommend adding zucchini or potatoes for some more “oomph”. Season with salt and pepper. Add olive oil and toss to combine. What I didn’t do (but should have) was squeeze the lemon wedges over the chicken, and then add the wedges to the pan. Then pour the wine over the chicken. Add a little more fresh rosemary over the top if desired, and then bake in a 400 degree oven for about 50-60 minutes or until chicken is cooked through and (hopefully) a beautiful golden brown.

Good luck, and invite me to dinner!