Adam Roberts’ Roast Chicken with Potatoes

September 30, 2008 at 10:17 am | Posted in Dinner, Entertainment | 6 Comments

On Saturday (during the monsoon and after my 12 mile run!) I joined Julie and John for a book reading/cooking demonstration by Adam Roberts at the Baltimore Book Festival! He spoke of a chicken and potatoes recipe that was to die for, so I dutifully proceeded to gather the ingredients at Wegman’s!

Adam gave us a wonderful demonstration on how to make awesome homemade tomato sauce in the tent under the pouring rain! And we even got to ingest some of his tasty creations and chat with him for a bit! We gave him some local foodie stops to try for dinner, lunch and carousing. I picked up his book (which btw is highly entertaining) at the book festival and also decided I must try this recipe he spoke of so fondly during his demonstration!

Ingredients:

1-4 lb chicken, rinsed, THOROUGHLY dried and trussed
4 sprigs thyme
1 tbsp salt
1 tbsp fresh ground pepper
1 tbsp cayenne pepper
1 tbsp fennel seeds
12 red bliss potatoes, scrubbed and cut in half
1 clove garlic, diced
1.5 cups frozen peas
evoo and 1 tbsp butter

Directions:

1) Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and after cleaning the chicken shove the thyme sprigs inside the cavity and then tie up the legs!
2) Combine the dry spices and rub the chicken all over.
3) Place the chicken in a roasting pan and surround it with the cut potatoes, cut side down.
4) Drizzle the potatoes with evoo and season with s&p.
5) Roast the chicken for 1 hour!
6) In the meantime (and close to when the chicken will be done), melt the butter in a small pot on low and then saute garlic for 30 seconds. Add the peas and cook over medium low for about 5 minutes.
7) Once chicken is done, dissect it and place some nice pieces with the potatoes and peas! Chow down and enjoy!

The chicken turned out great! And now that I have finished Adam’s fun book I learned that the recipe came from Miss Alice Waters and Chez Panisse (funny cause I just finished the biography on that!). The fennel and cayenne marry nicely with the juicy and tender chicken and oh my gosh the potatoes are to die for!