Saffron Chickensaffronchicken.com

Roast6 min

Roast chicken with saffron butter

The saffron goes under the skin, in butter, where the heat stays gentler than the oven air.

You will not get a crimson bird. You will get gold fat, a floral smell when you carve, and drippings worth spooning over the meat. That is the dish. Expecting a red skin is how people overdo the pinch.

Serves 4About 1 hour 30 minutes

Whole chicken, saffron butter

Ingredients

  • 1 whole chicken, about 4 pounds
  • 3 tablespoons soft unsalted butter
  • 0.1 g saffron threads
  • 1 teaspoon kosher salt, divided
  • 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
  • Zest of 1 lemon
  • 1 lemon, halved
  • 4 cloves garlic, lightly crushed

Method

  1. Heat the oven to 425°F. Crush the saffron with 1/4 teaspoon of the salt and the lemon zest. Work that into the butter.
  2. Pat the chicken dry. Slide your fingers under the breast skin and the thigh skin, opening a pocket. Push the saffron butter into the pockets. Spread any leftover butter on the outside.
  3. Salt and pepper the outside and the cavity. Put the lemon halves and the garlic in the cavity.
  4. Set the chicken breast side up in a small roasting pan. Roast until a thermometer in the thickest part of the thigh, away from bone, reads 165°F. Start checking at 50 minutes. Many birds land between 55 and 75 minutes.
  5. Rest 15 minutes. Spoon the drippings over the carved meat.

165°F is the safe temperature to cook poultry to. The butter under the skin is there so the breast still tastes like something when the thigh is done. The drippings should smell floral. If they taste metallic, use less saffron next time.

A half-gram jar holds about five of these pinches. Cook this once, cook the onion braise once, and you still have saffron left for a pot of rice. The cost of that habit is on Saffron Cost. The storage rule is short: dark jar, closed, off the stove.

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