Favorite Roast Chicken

I roasted this chicken last night using a variety of cooking/roasting techniques I accumulated over the years. I think this is my favorite. Mostly because it's the simplest without sacrificing flavor or juiciness.

After salting the bird overnight, I used whatever vegetables I had in the fridge to roast along with it. In this case, carrots, onions and butternut squash. the overnight salting is key and though a lot of recipes call for either rubbing the skin with oil or butter, i don't think that's at all necessary as there's enough fat from the skin. I guess it doesn't brown to picture-perfection, but you still get a super crisp, almost paper thin skin. A lot of the fat from the chicken dripped onto the veggies but only the bottoms really caramelized and browned. No matter since it cooked through and weren't mushy. In any case, not the most appealing looking veggies but delicious nonetheless.

Not sure if it's because of the salting, but the skin was almost suspended off the flesh and had a gossamer like quality. You can kind of see it here.

31/2 - 4 lb. chicken
11/2 - 2 T salt
1 L onion, sliced into 8ths
2-3 carrots chopped into large wedges
1 lemon, halved
butternut squash or other root vegetables

- salt chicken all over 1-2 days before ready to roast.
- take the chicken out around 1 hour before roasting. preheat oven 400.
- scatter the vegetables on a roasting pan. sprinkle with salt and pepper.
- dry the chicken with paper towels. sprinkle with pepper. put lemon into cavity. tie legs.
- place chicken over veggies.
- roast for 1 hour or until juices run clear.