Basic Roast Chicken

Roast chicken is so good, so easy, and so inexpensive!  It is real comfort food and can be prepared in so many ways.
There is one cardinal rule with chicken: it must be fully cooked.  Underdone chicken is never welcome.
Here is a basic recipe.

Ingredients:
A four to five pound (2kg) whole chicken
One onion, chopped
One celery stalk, chopped
One quarter teaspoon (1.25ml) thyme leaves
One teaspoon (5ml) rubbed sage
One teaspoon (5ml) fresh rosemary
Four tablespoons (50ml) fresh parsley

Brining:
If you have a kosher chicken it will not need to be brined, but all other chickens will benefit greatly from brining.
Both the texture and flavor will be improved, and brining also helps to thaw a bird that is still partially frozen.
Most brine recipes call for sugar.  I think using sugar is a bad idea. It doesn't do much for the chicken and we eat
far too much sugar anyway.  If you intend to later use the chicken carcass to make stock, definitely do not use sugar.
Prepare a brine of one quarter cup (50ml) salt and four quarts (l) water.  Immerse the bird in this brine and
refrigerate for at least six hours.  Overnight is better.  Turn the bird over at least once during brining.

Method:
Drain the bird well.  Remove any fat pads that may be found at the abdominal opening.  Preheat your oven to 400F
(200C).  Mix the vegetables and herbs listed above, microwave them until thoroughly cooked and partially fill the
cavity with this mixture.  Roast the chicken in a glass pan for two hours.  A 9x13 inch (20cm x 30cm) or nine inch
(20cm) round pan is good for this.  An exceptionally rich broth will collect in the pan along with considerable fat.
The lowest part of the chicken actually stews in this broth rather than roasts, and the skin in and near the collecting
liquid will be unappetizingly limp but this is OK.  Almost all of the chicken will be perfectly roasted with crispy brown
skin, and this is what you will carve and serve.  If you roast on a rack the entire bird will be truly roasted but the broth
and fat will scorch and be ruined, and they are too good to lose.  When you remove the chicken from the oven insert a
large spoon or fork into the big opening and upend the chicken over the roasting pan and let the broth in the cavity
drain.  This broth should be yellow.  Any residual pink color tells you the chicken is not fully cooked.  Place the chicken
on a platter suitable for serving and carving.  You can now let the bird rest for fifteen or twenty minutes which will
improve both the flavor and texture of the meat.  This is a convenient time for deglazing the roasting pan and either
using or freezing the broth and fat.
The broth you have collected makes a wonderful base for gravy or a sauce, and the fat, perfumed by the herbs, is
excellent for making roux and in mashed potatoes.  I like to keep the collected broth and fat frozen until the next time
I roast a chicken.  I thaw it while the (next) chicken is roasting, divide the fat from the broth, use part of the fat to
make a roux, then use the broth to make a gravy or sauce.  It is particularly good for making mustard-caper sauce.
It is very salty, so the gravy will have to be diluted with stock, cream or wine.  By saving the broth and fat for the next
time I roast a chicken, I avoid having to hastily prepare a gravy at the last minute, and the task of separating the fat
from the broth is easier.

The gravy:
Begin by making a roux: in a small saucepan over very low heat, melt two tablespoons of butter or roasting fat and
mix in two tablespoons flour.  Add more flour as needed to obtain a semisolid consistency similar to warm peanut
butter.  Cook for about ten minutes, being careful not to scorch it.  Add the broth and mix thoroughly.  Bring to a very
gentle boil and dilute with stock, cream or wine until the gravy is no longer too salty.

After the meal, remove most of the meat from the carcass and store that.  You now have the basis for a tasty stock!
If need be, the carcass with the herb and vegetable mixture it was stuffed with can be frozen until you are ready
to make the stock.