Garlic-Rosemary Roasted Chicken

There is a particular kind of tired that shows up by Wednesday, the kind where cooking a real dinner from scratch is not going to happen no matter how much you want to eat well. This roast is built for the day before that, when you have a little more in you: season the bird, tent it, and let a low oven do 3 unattended hours that becomes several dinners later in the week.

Chicken is a source of selenium, a mineral involved in thyroid hormone conversion and in the body's antioxidant defenses, worth naming for anyone working an Autoimmune condition that touches the thyroid. Roasting it low and slow keeps the juices in the meat instead of scorched onto the pan, so what nourishes you actually reaches the plate.

Ask for a whole bird raised with some care if you can. The carcass from tonight becomes tomorrow's broth, and the drippings become a sauce, so 1 bird spread across a week when you have less to give wastes almost nothing the animal gave. Paying attention to that, even for a few seconds while you carve, is part of the practice.

Ingredients

• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 whole roasting chicken
• 6 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 tablespoons coconut oil
• 2 tablespoons sea salt
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon lemon zest
• 1 tablespoon dried rosemary

Omit the black pepper the source lists, which strict AIP elimination leaves out. The garlic, rosemary, lemon, and salt carry the flavor fully without it.

Method

• Heat the oven to 250F. Scatter the chopped onion across the bottom of a baking dish and set the chicken on top of it.
• Stir together the coconut oil, salt, lemon juice, lemon zest, and rosemary into a paste, then rub it all over the bird.
• Tent the dish with foil and roast for 3 hours.
• Uncover, baste the chicken with the pan juices, and roast about 1 hour more. Baste again and continue roasting in roughly hour-long stretches until the thickest part of the thigh reaches 165F. Larger birds take longer, so judge by the internal temperature rather than the clock. (verify - source figure)
• Rest the chicken for 10 minutes before carving. While it rests, simmer the pan juices until reduced by about half, roughly 8 to 12 minutes, then spoon them over the carved meat. (verify - source figure)

*Adapted from acleanplate.com*