This week's recipe is courtesy of Scoop reader, Mona B.!
It's longer than our usual recipe, but we love the little touches of humor in the recipe so we're printing it in its entirety. And I'm personally making it this weekend. Thanks, Mona!
Mona’s When-Nobody-Brings-a-Hot-Dish Chicken
Feeds 6, or more if you add extra veggies
Ingredients
• One fresh chicken (with the button)
• 2 cups chicken broth (get 2 cartons of chicken broth)
• 1 stick of butter
• 4 large potatoes or baby potatoes
• 3 large carrots
• 2 -3 stalks of celery
• 2 onions (or more if you like it)
• 1 small orange
• ½ tsp dried mint leaves
• Dash of flour
• Salt and pepper to taste (I would actually put in a pinch of pepper flakes)
• Cooking bag
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
1) Chop potatoes into large chunks, set aside
2) Slice carrots into 3rds (or use baby carrots), set aside
3) Slice celery into 3rds, set aside
4) Clean and chop onions into 4ths, set aside
5) Wash orange, chop into 4ths, and remove seeds and set aside.
6) Wash chicken. Pat dry. DON’T forget to take out the giblet bag, if there is one! Otherwise, you will experience a stink that will gag a skunk.
7) Rub the surface of the bird with butter
8) Place tablespoon of flour into roasting bag, and shake it around closed bag. Follow instructions on the box the roasting bag came in for air holes, weight limits, etc. Flour is to help keep the bag from popping/sticking to bird.
9) Place oven bag into roasting pan – DON’T load the bag and then try to move it. The sound of a bird hitting the kitchen floor is very depressing….as is watching the veggies scatter to all four corners of the kitchen.
10) Layer the veggies! Potatoes on the bottom, carrots next, celery last. You are making a raft for the chicken to sail on, LOL.
11) Stuff the onion and orange inside the bird.
12) Salt and pepper the bird to taste, along with crushed dried mint leaves. You won’t actually taste the mint, but it makes the bird taste extra fresh!
13) Place bird on the “raft.”
14) Pour in chicken broth carefully, not disturbing the seasoning on the skin. Put the rest of the broth in the fridge, you will use it later.
15) Seal bag, put in oven for at least 25 minutes, or until button pops up. If you can’t get a “button” chicken, make sure a meat thermometer inserted at the thigh shows 165 degrees F. In my oven, the magic number is about 33 minutes, your mileage may vary. When the button pops out, I cut open the top of the bag, and brown the bird for about 3 minutes. Careful if you cheat and use the broiler…
16) When you take the bird out, do not discard the juices or veggies, but throw the orange away.
17) Serve with fresh hot bread and coleslaw.
Here’s the trick! Once everyone has eaten, take the remaining chicken and carefully debone it. Place it and the veggies in a container, with the juice in a second container (otherwise, your potatoes are going to be mush) and the following day, you can have Chicken Noodle soup. All you have to do is get some fettucine noodles, snap them into quarters or halves, get the rest of the chicken broth, and put the chicken, the veggies, the reserved broth and the extra chicken broth and the noodles in a large soup pan. Cook until the fettucine noodles are to your taste. I usually have to add extra salt and pepper.
You could also use cooked rice instead of noodles if you wanted Chicken and Rice soup. If you put raw rice into the leftovers, it will suck up all of the liquid and be a disaster – so pre-cook that rice. Just add the rice, bring it to a good boil to make sure everything’s hot, and serve with salad, sandwiches, bread, etc.
You can also add a cup of white wine (NOT cooking wine) instead of one of the cups of chicken broth to the chicken, for additional flavor. With my relatives, it was a race to see how much went into the chicken, and how much went into my Mom and me….
This was what I used to make when my grandmother was sick – we’d have hordes of family come in on the weekends, and could the first one of them bring a covered dish? NO. It was like a biblical plague. I mean, locusts looked at these people and felt sorry for us.
Well, this way, I could make the chicken for Saturday supper, and we’d have the soup and salad for Sunday brunch. This also works with Turkey, just use more veggies, and I would absolutely use 2 additional cups of wine, makes the turkey soft as butter.
