chorizo chicken

We're kind of on a whole roasted chicken kick. It's the perfect Saturday night meal. (That is, when we're not doing pizza.) This weekend, we made a particularly delicious variant on the usual: chorizo chicken. It's the best thing to do with a beautiful, pastured heritage bird. Crispy, smokey and succulent.

Method: Atop your prepared (olive oil or butter + salt/pepper) bird, place a half-dozen slices of fiery-red chorizo. Maybe add a couple of sprigs of rosemary. Roast. (You may need to run your exhaust fan on low during the cooking. Roasting chorizo doesn't get along well with smoke detectors.) Observe the smokey, paprika-y deliciousness permeating the chicken's skin and meat. Not to mention whatever you place below the roasting bird. (We diced celeriac, sunchokes, parsnips and rainbow carrots.)

It was wonderful. Even the breast meat was delicious... know what I mean, fellow dark meat peeps? One thing I wish I remembered to do this time: dry brine. Quite simply, the morning of the dinner day, rub the chicken with a copious amount of salt and refrigerate all day. Rinse thoroughly before preparing the bird for roasting. This simple step makes the skin go extra crispy.

So, now we have yet another chicken carcass in the freezer. We're beyond capacity, so it's time to make stock. And, with the meat leftovers? I'm thinking homemade pot pies. Yum.