Jordan's Roasted Chicken

This post is by Jordan Levine

This is a chicken my mom regularly cooked while I was growing up and and continues to do so. As Von always likes to quote an episode of 'Will and Grace', my family's relationship with chicken - "it's real and it's deep". This was NOT the recipe my grandmother used - her's was simpler - but it's been our best shot at replicating what we imagine to be old-country magic.

Ingredients:

Roaster (5-6 lbs)

Garlic Powder

Hungarian Paprika (not the spicy variety)

Kosher Salt

White Wine (Sauvignon Blanc seems to work well)

Pre-heat your oven to 425F. After cleaning the chicken, place it in a roasting pan. Pour wine over the bird so that it forms approximately 1 cm of wine at the base of the pan. Then apply a coating of garlic powder and paprika to the chicken. Pour more wine over the chicken so that some of the spices make their way into the sauce at the bottom of the pan. Apply another coating of garlic powder and paprika so that the chicken is well covered. Lightly sprinkle the chicken with the kosher salt. (My mom and grandma usually used Kosher chickens so this step was not necessarily needed as the chickens would be previously salted.)

Place the chicken in the oven for approximately 1.5 hours. (if you cut between a leg and thigh, the juices should run clear with no blood/pink remaining).

Take the chicken out and allow it to rest for 15-20 minutes to lock in the juices before serving.

Spring Tonic

My Dad, Donald Jacobs, wrote this in a Facebook post on 4/15/2014.

 "As far back as I can remember, when April arrived we brought in dandelion leaves for our annual Spring Tonic, which was dandelion leaves, bacon, eggs on mashed potatoes. Can still taste it. All those memories came back this noon as Anna Ruth prepared the exact same "tonic." Talk about soul food! As I recall you have to have this four or five times before it does much good. While doubting its efficacy, I enjoyed the comfort!"