Roasted Chicken with Rosemary & Garlic

This recipe comes from the book Breaking Bread in L’Aquila by Maria Filice. I really love this book and we pull it out all the time for recipes and ideas. The book was written to showcase the traditional foods of the L’Aquila region of Abruzzo, Italy. Proceeds from the sale of the book were donated to victims of the L’Aquila earthquake in 2009. I first heard about the book from the blog Life in Abruzzo, a great resource for all things Abruzzi. I will have to do a full post about both of these to give them the full attention they need.

Pollo Arrosto con Aglio e Rosmarino

Ingredients

• 1 small chicken (We usually get a 5  to 6 pound bird)
• 1/4 cup of extra virgin olive oil
• 1 head of garlic (about 10 cloves), minced
• 1/4 cup of finely chopped fresh rosemary (seriously, don’t even try this with dried rosemary)
• One sweet onion
• fresh ground pepper to taste
• course kosher salt to taste

Instuctions

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees

Mix the olive oil, minced garlic, chopped rosemary, salt and pepper in a small bowl. You’re going to rub this all over the bird and give it a good covering. Also, slide you hand under the skin and rub this sauce under the skin. This really helps flavor the bird.

The official recipe doesn’t call for it but Curt likes to add a small sweet onion and some extra garlic in the cavity.

Cook the bird for 20 minutes per pound at 375. You will want to turn it over for the last 30 minutes. Therefore, for a 5 pound bird, you are going to cook it for 70 minutes and then flip it over and cook it another 30 minutes. Baste the bird periodically while it is cooking

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Let the chicken sit for about 10 minutes to rest and cool, then you can part it and it’s ready to serve. Enjoy!