One Kitchen, Many Cultures

Gluten Free Meat & Poultry

Lemon Honey Mustard Glazed Roasted Chicken.

While mommy made amazing baked chicken (I don’t ever recall hearing the word ‘roast’ or ‘roasted’), especially around Christmas-time, when turkey wasn’t as popular as it is today in the Caribbean during the holidays. Typically it would be a large chicken cut into large pieces seasoned with Caribbean Green Seasoning and roasted until it was golden brown and fully cooked.

You’ll Need…

2 whole chicken (about 3-4 lbs each)
3 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon sea salt
3/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 tablespoon Caribbean Green Seasoning
2 stalks rosemary (divided)
8 sprigs thyme (divided)
8 sage leaves (divided)
2 head of garlic (tops trimmed off)
2 cups of chicken stock
2 tablespoon honey
2 lemons (juice)
3/4 tablespoon dry mustard powder

Notes. Please use the video below to follow along as some questions you may have will answered there. I didn’t use a wire rack in the roasting pan, but you may if you wanted. Be sure to spray your roasting pan with cooking spray or line it with foil to help making clean-up later easier. If doing this recipe gluten free be sure to go through the full list of ingredients to make sure they meet with your specific gluten free dietary requirements. Especially the chicken stock you use.

In a small bowl mix together the oil, Caribbean Green Seasoning, black pepper and salt. Brush the chicken with this marinade (in and out). Stuff the cavity of each chicken with rosemary, thyme, sage and one head of garlic each (try to place them last as we’ll remove them during roasting) . In the video below I showed how I trimmed off the top part of the garlic so later on the garlic itself will be easier to remove out of the skin.

Place the now seasoned and stuffed birds in your roasting pan and pour the chicken stock on the bottom. Then into a 400 F preheated oven on the middle rack for one hour. If you find that it’s getting dark or burned in some areas, you may lightly tent them with foil. I didn’t.

After 1 hour, remove the garlic from the cavity of the chicken and place the chicken back in the oven but raise the temperature to 425 F . Time to make the Lemon Honey Mustard Glaze. In a blender or food processor (I used a magic bullet) add the garlic cloves (remove the skins), honey, mustard and juice from the lemons. Should you want a more pronounced lemon flavor, zest the lemons and add it to the glaze. For a more pronounced mustard flavor, add 1 teaspoon of Dijon mustard as well.

One hour and 20 minutes later, it’s time to remove the chickens from the oven and hit them with their first coat of glaze with a brush. Since the sugar in the honey will make it easy to burn when they roast moving forward, may I recommend you lower the shelf in the oven and to keep an eye on things in case you need to rotate the roasting pan.

I applied 5 coats of the glaze in about 15-20 minutes (from the time I started applying the glaze). Keep in mind that if you use larger chickens they may take a bit longer to fully cook.

Remove from the oven once they’re fully cooked and PLEASE allow them to rest for about 8-10 minutes before you cut/serve. At the one hour mark when I removed the garlic, I also removed the chicken stock from the pan to make my gravy. Should you be interested in that chicken gravy recipe, please let me know by leaving a comment.

Definitely not mommy’s baked chicken, however as with most of the recipes I share, her mark in in there somewhere.

Gluten Free Meat & Poultry

The Simplest Oven Roasted Chicken Ever (recipe)!

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Oven roasted chicken (baked chicken as it’s sometimes called in the Caribbean) is infamous for being dry and somewhat bland. However in this recipe I’ll not only show you how simple it is to a make a moist oven roasted chicken, we’ll apply some Caribbean seasonings (herbs) which will definitely excite your taste buds. This recipe is based on the method of seasoning chicken as it’s normally done in the Caribbean for stews, curries and grilling.

 

You’ll Need…

1 4 lb chicken
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 lemon
1 tablespoon Caribbean green seasoning
2 tablespoon olive oil

*Notes:  To add a little kick to things, you can add some finely diced scotch bonnet pepper or a little peppersauce (hot sauce) to the marinade. Click on the following link for a recipe video on how to make Caribbean Green Seasoning: http://youtu.be/g7znPCJvhnU BTW, this is also a wonderful gluten free recipe idea.

 

If you’ve never spatchcock a chicken before , it’s very simple. Using kitchen scissors (or knife), place the whole bird on it’s breast (we sometimes say chest in the Caribbean) then using the scissors, remove the backbone off the chicken by cutting along each side of the middle main bone (see image below). Then turn over and gently press down on the breast to fatten the chicken. This method (spatchcock) will enable us to cook the chicken quicker and more evenly. Discard the back bone or save for soups and making stock.

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Wash and pat the chicken dry, then in a bowl combine all the ingredients and give it a good mix.

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Rub the entire chicken with this lovely Caribbean marinade and set in the fridge to marinate for a couple hours (cover with plastic wrap). Then place in a baking pan with a rack (if you don’t have a rack you can place on top some cut carrots, celery and onion) the idea is to allow heat to circulate around the chicken as it roasts. In my case I like adding about 1 cup of water to my pan as I find that it helps to keep the chicken moist as it roasts in the oven.

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Heat your oven to 400 F and roast on the middle rack for about 50 minutes. Half way through roasting, turn your pan so it browns evenly. If you’re using my tip for adding water in the pan, you may need to add some more after about 30 minutes.

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Allow the chicken to rest about 6-8 minutes (covered) before slicing through. I like placing the use lemon pieces in the roasting tray as it adds a lovely aroma as the chicken does it’s thing.

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Without a doubt this will be one of the simplest roasted chickens you’ve ever made and quite honestly.. the tastiest. The marinade will add a lot of flavor to this chicken and I know your family and friends will be complimenting you on a job well done.