Roast Chicken

 Roast Chicken 

    This recipe comes to us from Rufus Estes' Good Things To Eat. Rufus Estes was born into slavery in 1857. In about 1867, he attended "one term" of school and then left to go to work and help his mother.  At sixteen, he was employed by a restaurant keeper in Nashville. In 1881, at the age of twenty-one, Mr. Estes got a position at "77 Clark Street" in Chicago. In 1883, he entered the Pullman (railway) service.  Until 1897, he traveled, met and worked (in the railway service,) with many VIPs of the day. In 1894 he traveled to the Cherry Blossom Festival in Tokyo, Japan. The couple he traveled with on the Empress of China ship, I assume must have been some of those VIPs he'd met in the Pullman service. In 1897, he became employed by the president (at the time) of the Kansas City, Pittsburg, & Gould Railroad, and was  placed in charge of the company president's private rail car. He'd been hired by the company president and was well liked by the president.  In 1907, when new management took over, Mr. Estes left and was employed as a chef in subsidiary companies of the US Steel Corporation in Chicago.  This version of Mr. Estes' cookbook was printed in 2009.

    I've adapted the recipe a bit, but followed Mr. Estes' directions as closely as possible.  

Ingredients:

1 Chicken (Mine was about 4 lbs; I meant to write that down, but neglected to)

Bacon (I used about 1/2 pound)

Optional:

Garlic Salt 

Pepper

Paprika

    Back in Mr. Estes' time, fresh chickens were easy to come by and you didn't go to a store for your poultry and other  meats, so it should come as no surprise, that my chicken was store bought.  After removing the chicken from it's packaging, I rinsed it off and placed it on my large cutting board. I spread a mixture of Jane's Krazy Garlic Salt, Pepper and Paprika all over the top and bottom of my chicken and used a bit of white string to tie (truss) the legs. I placed the chicken in a deep casserole dish, which was miraculously large enough.  I laid strips of bacon all over the top of the chicken and placed a piece of buttered parchment paper on top, tucking it into the dish. Mr. Estes' directions say to cover the chicken and bacon with buttered paper and I wanted to do that part, because it was in his directions. The part I was confused about, was the bacon. Did he mean bacon like we would have as part of bacon & eggs or in a BLT or did he mean a meatier kind, like Canadian bacon? Personally I figured he used the latter, so that's what I used.  I placed the dish into my pre-heated oven. I started checking what it looked like at 50 minutes, which I knew wouldn't be enough time, but I wanted to see. Ten minutes later I took the paper off and basted with the chicken's own juices. Mr. Estes says to take the paper off five minutes before cooking time is finished. Your bacon is supposed to brown up after you take the paper off. I actually ended up cooking the chicken for one and a half hours, taking it out and basting every ten minutes. 

    So, I set the pan on top of a pot holder on my counter to let it cool. I think I waited about fifteen minutes and had removed as much of the juices I could suck up with the baster, and placed the chicken on my cutting board (which I had washed immediately after having the raw chicken on it). I let it cool a tiny bit longer and then served myself a leg and a small slice of breast. I'm not including a picture of my plate like I normally do, because it just was not a cute photo. 

    The verdict? Would I make a roast chicken this way again? Yes. I would do a couple things differently though. I would cook the chicken either longer or at a higher temp, because it could have gone another 15 minutes at least and I would use more seasoning. It did come out juicy (awesome!), but I like the skin to be crisper.  I would also want the bacon to be way crisper, although it wasn't bad. 

The cookbook

The finished chicken.