Caribbean Spiced Roast Chicken
Several years ago, while traveling in New Orleans, Rebecca and I heard about a local chef who made a traditional roast every weekend for a family dinner. Inspired, we began our own tradition of a weekly roast, sometimes meat, other times vegetarian. Our frequent favorite was a classic roast chicken with butter, garlic, and lemon. Adapting this dish to our new home in Haiti, we created a Caribbean Spiced Roast Chicken, drawing on the sweet, spicy, and tangy flavors found across the Caribbean basin. This combination of spices is reminiscent of Jamaica's famous jerks and Haiti's vibrant marinades, and the crispy skin will have you coming back for more.
Yield: 1 roast chicken, serves 4 as a main
Ingredients:
- 1 medium whole chicken (4-5 pounds)
Spiced Butter Rub:
- 3 tablespoons butter, softened
- 2 tablespoons onion powder
- 1 tablespoon kosher salt
- 1/2 tablespoon dried thyme
- 1/2 tablespoon brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon ground allspice
- 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon cayenne (can reduce for milder spice)
Cooking Liquid:
- 3 tablespoons cider vinegar
- 3 tablespoons soy sauce
Steps:
- Preheat oven to 350.
- Prepare the chicken by removing extra bits (gizzard, heart, neck, etc. that are often stuffed inside the chicken), rinse with cold water, and pat dry. Using your fingers (or a flexible silicone spatula), carefully work loose the connective tissue between the skin and meat on the breasts and legs. This is best achieved by slowly working your hand or the spatula blade between skin and meat, starting at the base of the breasts and working up toward the neck.
- Set the prepared chicken onto a roasting pan or thick bottomed pot or pan. Use a pan that is only slightly larger than the chicken to reduce the chance of the drippings burning.
- In a small bowl thoroughly mix together the spiced butter rub ingredients (butter, onion powder, salt, thyme, brown sugar, allspice, black pepper, garlic powder, nutmeg, cinnamon, and cayenne) to form a thick paste.
- In small amounts, use your fingers to carefully spread the spiced butter paste under the chicken skin covering the breasts and legs. You can knead the bits of butter through the skin to evenly distribute. Try not to rip the skin. Any leftover paste can be rubbed on the outside of the chicken skin.
- Poor the cooking liquid ingredients (cider vinegar and soy sauce) over the chicken, allowing it to run down onto the base of the roasting pan.
- Set the pan on the oven's middle rack and roast at 350 for 1 hour 45 minutes.
- Remove from the oven and test for doneness, and allow to rest for 30 minutes before carving and serving. While the chicken is resting, prepare the drippings into a gravy if desired.
- Leftover meat can be removed from the chicken frame and saved for up to a week in the refrigerator. This makes excellent chicken salad!
Vietnamese Chicken Soup, Phở Gà
Food has the power to connect us to people and places around the world. In 2007, Rebecca and I spent three months traveling through South East Asia together. Leaving Cambodia on the back of moto-bikes, we arrived for the night, hot and dusty, in a small village in rural Vietnam. After dropping off our packs, we sat down on the rickety plastic stools of the town's only food stand, famished. Without asking what we wanted, two pungent bowls of Phở Gà, Vietnam's famous chicken noodle soup, were plunked down in front of us. We were hooked! As we made our way north over the next several weeks, we enjoyed many local variations of Phở: from the dark, rich, and beefy to bright and spicy with shrimp. Our favorite Phở, on which our recipe is based, was eaten from steaming bowls one early morning overlooking Hạ Long Bay. This version used chicken that had been marinated and grilled, rather than boiled in the soup, giving it a crispy texture and sweet charred flavor.
Each sip of flavorful broth reminds us also of the people and culture that created it. Phở is an aromatic and visual dish, one that we like to serve in our Vietnamese blue petal bowls made in the Kinh family workshop in the famous pottery village of Bat Trang, Vietnam. By partnering with a local non-profit and Ten Thousand Villages, women potters are able to make a living for their families, continue a rich cultural tradition, and gain access to tools, education, training, interest-free loans, and literacy classes. We buy many of our dishes and gifts from Ten Thousand Villages each year, and appreciate their commitment to ethical partnerships with local artisans around the world.
Berbere Spiced Chicken, Doro Wat
Berbere Spiced Chicken evokes memories of Ethiopia, the place where Paul and I first became friends. During our time in Addis, I got sick and Paul was appointed my hospital companion. I found a kindred spirit and we spent the rest of our time in Ethiopia together at every opportunity. A few months later, back home again, our relationship evolved into something more. The nuanced spice of berbere is a shared food memory; the start of a relationship, excitement of plans, passionate discussions, and the flash of recognition at finding a life partner.
Berbere is a distinctive spice mixture from Ethiopia -- fiery hot balanced with pungent garlic and warming spices. Many households prepare their own berbere mixture, and tarps laid out with drying chilies and spices were a common sight and smell in Ethiopia. Berbere Spiced Chicken is our greatly simplified and adapted version of the classic Ethiopian Doro Wat. Once you hunt down some berbere seasoning at your local spice store or online, this dish can be made in an hour and half with everyday ingredients.
Smokey Mexican Chile Paste, Chilmole
Last weekend, Rebecca and I moved into our permanent house here in Haiti. What a relief after months of transition. With food on the mind, our first order of business was setting up the grill! And yes, if you were wondering... it is the same grill we had in Pittsburgh for 8 years, lovingly disassembled and brought over in a suitcase by my MacGyver-of-a-father. As temperatures rise, there is just something special about grilled food. Maybe its that the smokey char reminds me of campfires and sleeping under the stars, maybe its just the uncomplicated joy of cooking over flames. For me, this Smokey Mexican Chile Paste is the closest thing there is to bottling all that is beautiful about grilling. Our non-traditional take on Mexican chilmole paste tempers the hard char of the classic black version, for a lighter, more fruity chili flavor. This paste is excellent for making red rice, a great base for barbecue sauces, a go-to rub for meats, and a potent flavor boost for chilis and other soups.
North African Grilled Chicken
Without AC in the summer, our small Pittsburgh kitchen is not a place you want to be cooking with high heat. For us, summer eating often revolves around the grill, where our current go-to protein is North African Grilled Chicken. Inspired by the flavors of the famous North African spice mix known as Ras Al-Hanout (or "best of the shop"), our marinade uses a blend of warming spices, cinnamon, black pepper, turmeric, cumin, nutmeg, and cloves, balanced with punchy lemon. This fragrant combination is intoxicating. North African Grilled Chicken is a crowd pleaser on its own and an excellent light addition to sandwiches, salads, or tacos.
Garlic Lemon Roast Chicken
Having an American-Canadian binational marriage comes with perks, one of which is two Thanksgivings: twice the feasting, with just enough time in between to allow for a full recovery. In honor of Canadian Thanksgiving, and the coming of cold weather, we wanted to share our go-to roast bird. This simple recipe avoids the complex trussing, stuffings, bags, frying, brining, injecting, or other techniques that can mystify and frustrate the home cook. Our Garlic Lemon Roast Chicken is ready for the oven in minutes, works every time, has moist meat and crispy skin, and is deeply infused with the flavors of lemon and garlic.
