500 Chicken. It could be 500 cloves of garlic; it could be 500 minutes of marinating, but no. 500 Chicken means firemen, frantic phone calls and the only way to accurately roast a bird. The number 500 is actually the temperature inside your oven just before the alarms start blaring- that’s you know the chicken is done.

Preparing a whole bird delivers a wonderful bonus gift every time: the glorious wishbone. Known in England as the Merrythought, the wishbone isn’t actually good luck itself, but only releases its fair favor when broken in two.  The person who wins the longer half in a face off is granted his or her wish. It is like a thumb war but you have the a shot at world peace.

I love this dish. I remember smelling the chicken roasting downstairs as I toiled away at my fifth grade homework on the second floor. The scent meant it was fall again, and we would continue to make this warming, comforting meal all winter. As the older (and wiser) sibling, I liked when the wishbone split exactly in half, which mean both Jake and I were granted our wishes.

Much like the legend of the wishbone, the perfect roast chicken is something of an enigma, often eluding the chef, coming out too dry or with an unwanted blackened skin. Not 500 chicken, provided you take it out of the oven before the fire engine rolls to the door. We eventually asked the volunteer team in Minneapolis if they would like to stay for dinner. They apparently had real emergencies on their hands. Boy did they missed out.

Famous 500 Chicken

1 roaster chicken (any size will work, cooking time must be adjusted accordingly

2 cloves garlic, peel and sliced in have horizontally

1 lemon sliced in half

1 onion sliced in half

1 bunch basil (optional)

Tons of Kosher Salt

Preheat the oven to 500 degrees!!**

Rinse the chicken and rub with sliced garlic. If you can handle it, place the sliced cloves under the skin of the chicken breasts. Do the same with a handful of basil leaves. If this doesn’t sound appealing to you, I don’t blame you, reserve herbs and garlic cloves. Now, salt the entire chicken, covering all surfaces. Place lemon and onion (and potentially unused garlic and basil) into the cavity of the bird and place wing side up on a v shaped wrack (or regular slatted rack) in a roasting pan.

Now put the bird in the oven and wait. I used a 2.5 lb’er and it took roughly 40 minutes including cooking. When a thermometer plunged into the breast reads 160, and the juices run clear from a small cut into the meat, the your ‘goose is cooked.” Remove it from the oven and let sit for 10-15 minutes. Enjoy with absolutely anything your heart desires.

**Truth be told, there is no reason your oven needs to be 500 degrees, and in fact that is a little extreme. I would recommend starting it at 375 for 10 minutes then increasing to 450, however, just leavening the oven at 450 will do the trick.

Happy eating everyone! This Monday is another movie night (500 chicken was the dish of choice along with White Russians of course for a screening of the Big Lebowski). I’m thinking of mussels next week, but you never know.

Over and out.