Highlight #132: RSS finally up and cooking for one

If you have ever looked for an RSS feed or tried to follow this blog, but couldn't, you may be pleased to know that I have finally fixed the problem that was preventing it. You may now sign up for the feed at the bottom of this blog or subscribe as a follower on the right hand side. Thank you for your support despite the lack of this feature in the past three years!

Now onto the food stuff. Today, I'd like to talk about cooking for one, something I do often with the husband out of the country half of the month. Sometimes I do something simple and easy to consume like seared scallops. Other times, I simply feel like cooking what I want Yesterday, I wanted to roast a chicken.

Instead of buying the larger roaster, my preference is for the smaller and younger broiler. In order to get an all around browning effect, I decided to roast it on my poultry roasting stand rather than lying down. The simple stand comes with two locking n shaped wires that go inside the bird and a pan underneath for holding flavoring liquids such as beer and stock and for catching drippings.

Knowing that I'd take some of the leftover to the parents the day after and their generally non-preference for lemony type of seasoning, I opted to make a Chinese five spice coating for the chicken. About a 1/4 cup of seasoning, a good dose of salt and a few good gulps of olive oil make a perfect paste for both generous insertion under the breast and thigh skin and for slathering all over the outside and inside the cavity. I rinsed the remaining seasoning in the paste mixing bowl with some white wine and stock and poured that into the drip pan. The oven was set at 400 to encourage browning.

Fifty five minutes later, my oven thermometer registered 160F at the thickest part of the chicken. With the residue cooking, this was enough to put the chicken in the safe range. Check out that well browned backside on the chicken! You just can't get that roasting it lying down.

Some quick dissecting generated a good pan of juicy meat. I put the drippings in the fridge to solidity and then scrapped off the fat layer. Mixing the remaining chicken essence with a bit of salt and pepper, it became the perfect sauce for pouring over.

But my favorite part about roasting chicken is the carcass after the carving. This is when I put on a favorite movie, pour myself a glass of wine, and go at it with all ten digits. Perfect nibbler food, just perfect.