Cooking with Doyle

I'm a real meat & potatoes kinda guy, so I never turn down the opportunity to cook a classic meal like this.  Serve this up with some stuffing & mashed potatoes and you're guaranteed to popular at the dinner table.

The stuffing is a family recipe and doesn't have any measurements.  Basically, I watched my father do it as a child and now I do it as an adult.  Everything is done to taste, so do what I do and just make up the amounts.

Ingredients

• Chicken
  • 3 1/2 lb chicken
  • 1 tbsp rosemary
  • 2 tsp thyme
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/4 tsp black pepper
  • 4 garlic cloves, minced
  • 1/2 cup lemon curd (see my recipe here)
  • 2 large lemons, halved
• Stuffing
  • Bread slices, torn into pieces
  • Chicken soup base
  • Sage (this is the primary spice)
  • Thyme
  • Rosemary
  • Celery, chopped
  • Rasins
  • 1-2 chopped green apples
  • Chopped onion

Directions

1. Loosen skin from chicken by gently inserting your fingers between the skin and the meat.  It's easiest to do this in two directions -- from the breasts working towards the back and then from the back working forward.
2. Mix chicken spices together.  Rub under skin.
3. Combine ingredients for stuffing.  There's no magic, just mix it all together.
4. Fill chicken with stuffing.  (If any doesn't fit, don't worry.  We'll use it below)
5. Place chicken in a roasting pan that's been coated with cooking spray.
6. Coat chicken with lemon curd.  Place lemon halves around chicken.  Cover and bake at 450ºF for 30 minutes.
7. Reduce heat to 350ºF (do not remove chicken from oven) and continue baking until a meat thermometer reads 180ºF (about 45-60 minutes).
8. Remove chicken from oven and let rest 10 minutes.
9. Place any extra stuffing into greased casserole dish.  Cover with aluminum foil.  Bake at 350ºF for 25-30 minutes.
10. Remove stuffing from chicken.  Combine with extra dressing that was baked.
11. Carve chicken.  Serve hot.