A Very Taipei Thanksgiving

Last year for Thanksgiving Luke and I sat in Dan Ryan's, sadly eating our plate of overcooked turkey and too salty mashed potatoes. And it was just ONE plate. Contrary to popular belief, Thanksgiving is not the celebration of the day our forefathers came together with the Native Americans in giving thanks for their bounty. No, Thanksgiving is a holiday in celebration of gluttony. It is a day where Americans can actually feel good about stuffing themselves until they've swelled to twice their normal size. So, as you can imagine, it was blasphemy to us last year that we would only be served one measly plate (not to mention the ridiculous amount of money we paid for it), but what could we do?

The answer is, this year we are having our own Thanksgiving celebration with some friends. Granted, it won't be quite the same as the way we celebrate in the States, being that our oven is really just a glorified toaster oven, but surely (hopefully?) it'll be better than the way we celebrated last year. At the very least, we'll get seconds!

This week I've decided to dedicate some posts to those of you - here and abroad - who want to try your hand at cooking Thanksgiving dinner, or at least contributing to it. We're actually not making turkey for ours (again, one of the pitfalls of having an EZ Bake oven instead of a real one), and have decided instead to roast some chicken. Here's a simple recipe that I found in one of my favorite cookbooks, How to Cook Without a Book:

The No-Hassle Roast Chicken Dinner

Serves 4 (if you're using a 3 or 3 1/2 lb chicken; our chicken was about 2 1/2 lbs, which was enough for 2 people)

Basically, the secret of this recipe is that you cut out the entire back of the chicken (called butterflying). By using this method, the chicken cooks a lot quicker, and it's also easier to season.

Ingredients:

1 teaspoon fine-grated lemon zest
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 1/2 teaspoons minced rosemary leaves
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/2 lemon

1. Preheat your oven to 450 degrees.

2. Rinse the chicken, cut out its back, flatten it with your palm or fist, and pat it dry. Then transfer it to a foil-lined roasting tray - make sure it's large enough to hold the chicken (and vegetables, if you're also roasting them along with the chicken) and shallow enough so that the chicken will brown well.

3. Mix above ingredients together in small bowl.

4. With the chicken on the roasting pan, pull back the skin from each leg, thigh and breast, and rub the herb paste under the loosened skin. If you want, you can add some of the mixture on top of the skin as well.

5. Pull the skin back in place and drizzle with a little olive oil, or rub with softened butter. Make sure the chicken skin is completely dry if you're rubbing it with the butter.

6. Roast chicken for 30 minutes. (If you're using a smaller chicken, then you need to adjust your cooking time. I don't know exactly how long we roasted ours for, but just make sure you keep an eye on it.)

7. Squeeze lemon over chicken and return to oven and continue to roast until juices run clear, about 5 - 10 minutes longer.

If you want to roast vegetables along with the chicken, tomatoes and potatoes go well with it. Arrange potatoes (halved, tossed with olive oil and seasoned with salt and pepper) in a single layer in the pan and roast alongside the chicken. After 20 minutes, add tomatoes (halved lengthwise, tossed with olive oil and seasoned with salt and pepper) cut side up. Continue to roast until the chicken is done, squeezing lemon juice on at the appropriate time, for 20 minutes longer.

And ta-da!


This method also makes it super easy to carve - just take some kitchen shears or a chef's knife, and cut down the middle. Then cut the skin holding each leg to the breast, and you're good to go.