Bistro-Style Roast Chicken

Recipe: Bistro-Style Roast Chicken

She’s back!!!! I’m back to “My Happy Place” after spending 8 days in Europe, and my unofficial international “Happy Place”, London. Since I use this venue to blog about food, I’ll tell you about my trip to Europe through the eyes of my stomach. Quite honestly, I really don’t have many good things to say about the majority of the food I ate overseas. That is, until I got to London. Now, to be fair, my Paris dining experience consisted of a sandwich I got at the train station on my way back to Belgium. Yep, that’s right. I went to one of the greatest cites in the world and my dinner consisted of a really bad train station sandwich that looked like it had been sitting there all day. I’ll chalk it up to poor planning on the part of the group I was with when we mapped out our trip. In Belgium and Germany, most of my food consisted of the plant cafeteria meals. And I’ll be honest, I was somewhat afraid to eat the food. I guess I should insert my jetlag experience from my trip 2 years ago at this point. On day 3 of my trip in 2008, I got really bad jet lag. And apparently for me, a symptom of jet lag is nausea. And I chose the middle of the hotel lobby in Antwerp, Belgium to feel the effects of my jet lag. So this time, I was slightly paranoid to eat a lot for fear of getting sick in another hotel lobby. So if it didn’t look like a meal I would die without eating, I didn’t eat it. And the weird meat with even weirder sauce at the Mechlen (Belgium) plant didn’t qualify as “to die without eating” cuisine. The Uentrop (Germany) plant food was a little better in terms of the meat not looking that weird. But they also put sauce on everything. There is something about Europe food and sauce. They love sauce on everything. The second day in Uentrop, I asked the lady to not put sauce on my meat (I think it was a pork chop) and she looked at me as if I asked her to cut off her pinky and serve it to me.Apparently it is bad form to not eat the sauce. In Germany, we stayed in a hotel in Hamm and the restaurants in Hamm were actually not bad at all. The first night we went to a really nice steak restaurant. I had a medium fillet with a side of mushrooms and a baked potato. The potato had a weird ranch sour cream sauce on it that sorta ruined it for me. But the steak and mushrooms were really yummy. However, they were not yummy enough to qualify as “to die without eating” so I picked at the meal. I also think the fact that I ordered my steak medium, but at some point I think I heard it mooing at me may have contributed to the picking also. The second night in Hamm, we went to an Italian restaurant. One entertaining point, at least for me, the menu was entirely in Italian and German. Yet at least ¼ of the table was not Italian or German. It was entertaining to watch the confusion as the people who could speak German (or Italian) translating for the non-German/Italian people. It was further entertaining for me to have the OBL of my business be my interpreter. Here I am a planner having one of the top guys of my business reading me my dinner. Now that’s priceless. And the food was phenomenal. So phenomenal, I ate everything I was served. And anyone that knows me knows that’s saying something. Even when I’m on the right side of the pond, I don’t finish my entire meal most times. The starter was bruschetta, which was followed by lobster bisque. Both I think were the best I have had of either dish. And, thanks to my newfound cooking experience, I was able to distinguish a few distinct flavors. I definitely tasted fresh parsely in my lobster bisque. My meal was grilled grouper with a green cabbage which I believe to be Bok Choy. My interpreter didn’t have a good translation other than cabbage to tell me what the vegetable was. Now I’ve heard for years that London has really horrible food. But either I got really lucky when I was there, or that statement is really outdated. Because I had really good food in London. One meal in particular stands out. I was fortunate that I got to meet up with my really good friends Kate and Julius for most of my stay in London. On the last day we hung out we went to a cute little café in an artsy type neighborhood for brunch. I ordered Stuffed French Toast with ham, cheese, Dijon, and an avocado/tomato salsa. OMG. That meal may have made the top 10 list of best things I’ve ever eaten. It was so good, I took a picture (which is attached below). I also took a picture of Kate’s Flat White Latte, because the design of it looked so pretty. Unfortunately, it did not taste as good as it looked. My plan in taking the picture of the French toast is to also see if I can duplicate it. I shall make that one of my life goals. Either that or I’ll have to go back to Londonfrequently to relive that wondrous taste in my mouth over and over. Either way works for me. I also had a really good fish and chips meal, a really good gourmet burger (at least the name of the restaurant claims it was a gourmet burger), and some of the best marinated olives I’ve ever eaten in London. And I had my first taste of Sticky Toffee Pudding. Julius warned that his first time experiencing Sticky Toffee Pudding left him addicted. I wouldn’t rank my experience as addicting, but it was really good nonetheless. It seemed to be a gingerbread-like cake with a sticky icing. But the fact that Julius had an addicting experience with it, just means I must go back and try more. All in all, it was a wonderful trip to Europe, and I Seriously Heart London. I’ll definitely be going back.

Now, on to my newest adventure. I decided to tie my next cooking adventure with Easter dinner. Which means I picked a recipe instead of the usual randomness. I chose a Bistro-Style Roast Chicken. And I decided to revisit a couple of my recent adventures that I really liked. Yup, that’s right. I made more Brussels Sprouts! I really love those things. I still may rank the Brussels sprouts as my greatest cooking feat ever. You really don’t understand how much I used to hate those things. Now, I’m finding myself craving them. Who knew! I also made the Baked Mac and Cheese dish again. But since I’ve blogged about cooking both of those recipes before, I’ll only talk about the Roast Chicken now. This wasn’t a difficult recipe. In fact, this recipe took me about 20 minutes to prep (and that includes chopping fresh rosemary!). But don’t worry, the entire meal took me 3.5 hours to make. So my slowness is still in effect. The recipe really just consisted of making the coating for the chicken. I used the fresh rosemary, minced garlic, lemon juice, cayenne pepper, paprika, and salt and pepper and mixed it all with butter and coated the chicken with the mixture. After this, I just baked the chicken for about 50 minutes and that was it. Well…at least I thought that was it. The chicken looked and smelled great when I took it out of the oven. I was so proud as I took my picture. But when I went to cut, horror of all horrors, there was still pink. L So…back in the oven it went. But then I was paranoid to let it cook too long and dry out the chicken. So I only let it bake for about 10 more minutes. By the time the chicken had baked a second time, I had already finished my helping of Brussels sprouts and mac and cheese, and it was 9:30 at night. So I just decided to wait to eat the chicken the next day, and with reheating the chicken in the microwave, it would ensure the chicken was done. And admittedly, I’m typing this on the day after my cooking experience, and I can verify the microwave method worked well. And the chicken was really good. And very moist. And not pink.The butter coating gave the skin a great taste. I think I know where I went wrong also. The recipe called for a 3.5 to 4 lb chicken. But Giant Eagle only had 5.5 to 6 lb chickens. So I used a slightly bigger chicken but cooked it at the same time length. That’s my only logical explanation. And for all the food safety folks, I did use a thermometer to check the temp. And it did read 170 degrees when I took it out the first time. But somehow, maybe the entire chicken wasn't there. And the chicken wasn't grossly pink and red. I just know with chicken, any pink is not good. I’ll just have to do this one another time and work on it again. I guess they can’t all turn out perfect the first time right?? Right??

Bistro-Style Chicken

The "OMG" French Toast

The "Not so OMG" Flat White Latte