growing up my mom did most of the cooking. There was lots of gumbo, spaghetti and baked chicken with a little twist of the exotic like tongue and blackbirds thrown in the mix every now and again. I am not misspelling; my grandparents (mom’s side) are small rural farmers and so we get these Louisiana delicacies fairly regularly. I’m getting away from the real point.
like every family, once in a while something briefly aligns in the universe and the father is left to provide dinner for the family. so this happened to my father one faithful day when I was a little girl. To this day we aren’t really sure what he did but from what we can all gather he took a large bag of chicken wings and proceeded to bake them in a stew of sweet grapes. chicken wings as you all know can only be eaten with your hands. And grapes as we all know tend to cook down to not much more than sticky sweet syrup. Hm. what came after he put that casserole dish of chicken wings down on the dinner table was like a paper napkin genocide. you pick one of the juicy little wings up nosh on it a few seconds and have an undeniable need to wipe your fingers clean – immediately. but the problem is that you have something very close to a grease laced sap on your hands and the napkin plys stay with you even after you thought you were done with it. It was a environmentalist’s nightmare. mounds and mounds of shredded dirty napkins were shrewd over the table and we held our hands up in the air like a doctor, freshly prepped for surgery. you couldn’t touch anything but another napkin – or another piece of chicken until you just gave up. I don’t recall any side dishes with that meal, not that it would matter.
we fondly called this sticky sweet chicken creation “sticky chicken”. How my brother and I loved sticky chicken! We requested it all the time even in front of confused guests. It was exotic to us, but blackbirds were a standard.
this recipe is not sticky chicken only my father knows that recipe, but it is a recipe for baked chicken and gravy, my father’s favorite of mine. so I guess the tables have turned on us. seems every time I go home for a visit he requests I make this, or drops a hint which is more his style.
here’s to sticky chicken!
ROAST CHICKEN & GRAVY
6-7lbs whole chicken
1 lemon, cut in half
1 whole clove garlic, cut in half crosswise
1 large bunch fresh thyme
1 medium yellow onion, cut into quarters
4tbs unsalted butter, melted
kosher salt & fresh cracked pepper
*Preheat oven to 425 F
*remove innards from the cavity of the chicken & remove access fat. rinse whole chicken under the sink. Pat dry with paper towels and place on your roasting rack and tray.
*season cavity with salt and pepper. stuff in the lemon halves, thyme and garlic halves.
* tuck the wings under and tie the legs together with twine.
* brush melted butter all over the chicken and season with plenty of salt and pepper.
* lay onions in pan around the chicken
* bake in preheated oven for 1 1/2 hours or until thermometer reads its done.
* take chicken out of oven, remove chicken and its rack burnt onions (they always turn to coal on me).
*make gravy:
GRAVY
2 tbs flour
1cup chicken stock
*drain all but two tbs of the fat that is left in the pan
* put your roasting pan over medium heat on stove top
* with a wooden spoon mix in flour with the fat, cook stirring constantly for 1 minute
* whisk in stock, deglazing the pan at the same time.
* simmer on low until you are ready to serve or the gravy is becoming thick.
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