Take a quick perusal of this website over the past year-ish and you might think that I’ve subsisted entirely on baked goods. You wouldn’t be entirely wrong — I haven’t been cooking much during quarantine, largely because for large stretches of it, I’ve been lucky enough to be at home with my parents.
The one dish I’ve made more than a few times in the past 12 months? Roast chicken. To me it is an ideal Sunday night dinner: easy, comforting–the kind of meal that can fortify a person for a busy week ahead. The leftovers are ideal for adding to weekday lunches, whether in salad, grain bowl, or even sandwich form.
Most of the time, I stick with my go-to recipe, which yields potato chip-crisp skin and juicy, flavorful meat with minimal fuss. But every now and then, especially when you’re stuck at home for yet another quarantined weekend, a little bit of fuss seems appealing.
Enter this feta-brined roast chicken. Melissa Clark uses tangy feta to brine a whole chicken overnight, and then rubs the chicken with a lemon zest-and-oregano spice blend and roasts the chicken at a high heat until it’s crisp.
She (and I) highly recommend you seek out the fresh feta that comes as blocks packed in water — its flavor is fresher than the pre-packed crumbles. While she didn’t use that feta water for her brine, I did (and took the salt down a bit elsewhere in the recipe) to really bump up that salty, savory flavor. I used a Bulgarian sheep’s milk feta, which is extra creamy and rich, and was especially lovely in the post-roast pan sauce.
The results were everything I want from a roast chicken: bright, juicy meat with skin that crackles as you bite into it. I especially loved the pan sauce, luxed up with more crumbled feta and a good squeeze of lemon. Serving the chicken atop a bed of pan sauce-dressed greens ultimately leads to a lighter roast chicken dinner, one that’s ready for spring. 🌿
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