- Amy Poehler credits Ina Garten with teaching her to roast the perfect chicken.
- Garten’s roast chicken recipe is simple, flavorful, and full of comforting touches.
- Learning to roast a chicken can build confidence and create connection in the kitchen.
Roasting a whole chicken isn’t terribly difficult, but the process can feel overwhelming to novice home cooks. Thankfully, there are celebrity chefs like Ina Garten who break down kitchen tasks that seem daunting and make them easier to understand. Case in point, actor and comedian Amy Poehler, who credits Garten with teaching her how to roast a chicken.
Garten appeared as a guest this week on Poehler’s podcast, Good Hang with Amy Poehler, and Poehler kicked things off by sharing all about the ways Garten has influenced her own cooking habits.
“I make your roast chicken with fennel, that’s my favorite recipe,” said Poehler. “Your roast chicken—I’m sure you’ve heard this from many people, but you are like a translator. You take what you know and what you’ve learned and you make people understand it, and that is a rare skill. You taught me how to make a roast chicken, but it’s bigger than that and deeper than that.”
Garten was flattered, and she shared that it took her some time to understand why people loved her cookbooks so much.
“It’s not about the chicken, it’s about how when you cook, everybody shows up and you create a community around yourself,” Garten responded. “I didn’t know that until I started writing cookbooks, but it’s a really important thing. We all need to feel like we’re part of something… and a roast chicken is the most basic thing. I don’t think there’s a culture in the world that doesn’t have some kind of roast chicken.”
To make Poehler’s favorite Ina Garten recipe, Perfect Roast Chicken, gather a 5- to 6-pound roasting chicken, salt and pepper, fresh thyme, a lemon, a head of garlic and some butter. You’ll also want some veggies to roast in the pan along with the chicken. Garten suggests chopped onions, carrots and fennel, all tossed in some olive oil and spread beneath the chicken in your roasting pan.
To prep the chicken, Garten removes the giblets, then removes any excess fat or pin feathers and pats the bird dry. Then it’s time to get started. After salting and peppering the inside of the chicken, stuff a halved lemon and a halved garlic head inside, along with a bunch of fresh thyme. Melt some butter and brush it all over the outside of the chicken, then salt and pepper the outside, too.
Next, tie the chicken’s legs together with cooking twine and tuck both its wings beneath its body. Add those veggies to a roasting pan, place the chicken on top, and roast everything for about an hour and a half. In a video about the recipe, Garten makes sure the chicken is done with two simple tests.
“The first test is to shake hands with its leg. If it wobbles, it’s perfect,” she says in the clip. “The second one is to cut between the leg and the thigh and just make sure the juices are running clear. If they are, it’s definitely done.”
Once you’re sure the chicken’s cooked, allow it to rest for 20 minutes, covered with aluminum foil and sitting on a cutting board. While the bird rests, return the pan of veggies to the oven to allow them to caramelize. Then, it’s time to carve the chicken (always the teacher, Garten even walks through how to carve a chicken in her video, so it’s worth watching if you’re unsure). Serve the carved chicken pieces and veggies on a platter, drizzled with the juices from the roasting pan.
We’re also big fans of roasted chicken. In fact, one EatingWell editor roasts a chicken every week in her home to make weeknight meals easier and to have freshly-made stock on hand. And, since chicken is a classic protein source, having some roast chicken in your fridge is a great way to get protein throughout the week.
Plus, let’s be honest, being able to roast and carve a whole chicken is pretty impressive. And, according to Garten, it just gets easier with practice. “Roast chicken: I can do this in my sleep,” she says in the recipe video. “Roast chicken is the best kind of comfort food, and the good news is it can be a really simple meal or it can be an elegant one.”
We couldn’t agree more—and we’re trying Ina’s recipe ASAP.
