Saturday, September 18, 2010

Jamie Oliver's Roast Chicken with Lemon and Bacon-Rosemary Potatoes




I saw this recipe the other day on one of my favorite food bloggers site and she gave it such a glowing review I knew I had to try it.  She called it "Best Ever.  Amen"!  I'm going to have to agree.





For some reason, I've been putting off trying new things in the wood-fired oven.  I've gotten comfortable with making pizzas so it was time to step out of my box and experiment a little and I thought this chicken recipe would be a great place to start.



Getting the oven ready to roast is a little different than getting it ready to make pizzas.  It begins the same way....start a fire in the center of the oven and keep it going for 2-4 hours to get the oven up to temperature.  When you're making pizza, you move the coals to the wall, but you want an active flame shooting up the walls to keep the oven temp up around 750-800 degrees.  In this case, after about three hours I moved the hot coals to the wall and didn't add any more wood.  The oven temp near the door was about 500 degrees at this point.




I put the chicken and potatoes in the roasting pan and put the pan in the front of the oven right inside the opening.  That wire you see is my meat thermometer.





Then you close the door.  It works just like any other oven now.



About halfway through, I put the two bacon slices on top of the chicken and because I didn't want the chicken getting too brown, I loosely covered it with foil.  With about 5 minutes left I removed the foil to let the bacon crisp.



Oh my gosh was this amazing.  The chicken was smokey, lemony, and incredibly moist.  And don't get me started on the potatoes.  Crack potatoes.  I couldn't stop.   The only thing I could imagine better than those potatoes would be Duke beating Alabama today.  

You obviously don't need a wood-fired oven to make this and I can't wait to try it in a conventional one to see the difference.  You're going to want to make this for dinner this week!  I'm sending you over to Ezra Pound Cake for the recipe.  Thanks Rebecca.  Fabulous recipe.



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