Roast Chicken

I’ve said this before, but here’s the reminder again: this is not a recipe blog. There’s a few reasons for that, outlined in this post from 2022 when I last included a recipe. https://tabathashipleybooks.com/2022/12/14/banana-pudding-squares/

This is a blog where I share stories. Sometimes, those stories include recipes. 

I mentioned before that my Grandmother had a lot of old recipe cards from over the years. Recently, I went through them again. It’s been pared down as I’ve combined it with my own or gotten rid of her duplicates. There’s a few left that I realized I didn’t recognize and I wanted to try. 

Enter the roast chicken recipe. 

Now, if I had to guess, this is one sent to her by someone else. It looked like it may have been printed. I like to imagine that Nana had dinner at someone’s house and they sent her the recipe after she left because she raved about how much she liked it. Contrary to how it looks in this image, the paper was still very clean. That could mean she never got around to trying the recipe herself or it could just be because she was often a clean cook. Clearly, I do not have this same gift (the spot on the recipe card is from me).

Either way, I decided to give it a shot. 

I ended up using 1 full (double) breast of chicken from the butcher. This meat measured 2 pounds by itself, so that was plenty of chicken. I did, however, have only the boneless and skinless variety. That’s really all we eat anyway. 

I made the sauce as directed. 

Everything was going fine until the chicken had been in for about 20 minutes on the second side without being cooked through. At that point, I noticed the juice was running low (which would cause burning). So I quickly whipped up another batch (minus the shallots because I was out of those) and poured it over the chicken. 

I basted every five minutes from that point until it was done. Overall, it took almost an hour. 

Finally, because I used giant boneless, skinless breasts I sliced it up to serve. 

Juicy, delicious, and definitely worth trying again. 

So, if this isn’t a recipe blog, why am I sharing this story?

Simple.

Someone out there likely sent this recipe to my Nana. I have NO IDEA who it was. Maybe this will find them and they’ll see that it’s being appreciated (even when it’s being altered a little). So, if you happen to see this and think the recipe might belong to you … THANK YOU. 

My family has added it to the rotation.