Salt and pepper the cavity, then truss the bird. The less it steams, the drier the heat, the better. Rinse the chicken, then dry it very well with paper towels, inside and out. Get a heavy-duty cutting board (the kind that catches the meat’s juices when you cut into the bird) ready for carving-feel free to decorate it with a few pretty thyme sprigs. Dark meat is safe when the meat thermometer reads 165°, but more tender between 175° and 190°. You can take the chicken out of the oven when the breast is around 155☏-the temperature will go up about 10° as it rests. Instead of relying on just the suggested cook time, you’ll want to use a reliable instant-read thermometer to check the internal temperature of both the thickest part of the meat (the thigh) and the breast. It’s such a simple meal that you can make it on a weeknight with some quick veggies or a salad.Ī good roasting pan (or even a large cast-iron skillet) will help make this easy roast chicken recipe even simpler to execute.

Instead, it gets its wonderful flavor and crispy skin from a few simple but essential steps: using a pasture-raised whole chicken (which will have more flavorful meat than a conventionally raised bird), drying the skin thoroughly, salting both the skin and the cavity of the chicken, trussing the chicken so that the breast meat doesn’t dry out, and roasting at a pretty high temperature without basting. For Keller, the perfect roast chicken doesn’t require a lot of extra ingredients-just some kosher salt, freshly ground pepper, and fresh thyme (and the thyme is optional). Out of these unlikely circumstances was born the most authoritative cookbook in America, the book your grandmother and mother probably learned to cook from.Chef Thomas Keller’s food is known for fine dining finesse, but his recipe for simple roast chicken is about as easy as it gets. So, mustering what assets she had, she self-published The Joy of Cooking: A Compilation of Reliable Recipes with a Casual Culinary Chat. Louis hostess who sensed that she was not alone in her need for a no-nonsense, practical resource in the kitchen. She had recently been widowed and needed to find a way to support her family.

Cooking could no longer remain a private passion for Irma. In 1931, Irma Rombauer announced that she intended to turn her personal collection of recipes and cooking techniques into a cookbook.

Presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, “To Joe with all good wishes most cordially Irma S. Indianapolis/ New York: Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1941.Įarly printing of Irma S.

Irma s rombauer books