Roast Chicken, green beans, yorkshire pudding, & gravy
Fragrant roast chicken with citrus green beans with pine nuts. Yorkshire pudding with homemade gravy of the chicken drippings.
Ingredients
Roast Chicken
4 pound chicken
10 tbsp room temperature butter
1 bunch chopped tarragon
Olive oil to coat
Salt and pepper for butter and skin
1 small lemon, halved
1 small yellow onion, halved
1 Fresno chili, diced
3 thyme sprigs
3 heads of garlic, halved lengthwise
Green Beans
1.5 pounds fresh green beans, trimmed
1/4 cup pine nuts (can substitute with plain peanuts)
4 tbsp dried parsley
1 lemon, zested and juiced
4-6 tsp olive oil
Yorkshire Pudding
1 cup flour
1 tbsp salt
4 eggs, whisked
1 - 1/4 cup whole milk
6 tbsp vegetable oil
Chicken Gravy
1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup chicken drippings + onion and garlic from inside chicken
2 cups chicken broth
3 sprigs thyme
Instructions
The chicken should be cooked first. The green beans can be trimmed while it is in the oven. The Yorkshire pudding batter should be prepared and in the fridge for most of the time the chicken is cooking. Once the chicken is out and resting, proceed with the gravy, green beans, and Yorkshire pudding.
Roast Chicken
Preheat the oven to 400° F / 200°C . Loosen the skin around the chicken and trim any excess fat.
Roughly chop the tarragon leaves and combine it with the room temperature butter. Add in about 2 tsp each of salt and pepper. Push the butter mixture under the skin of the the chicken, smooth it out as much as possible.
Stuff the chicken with the thyme sprigs, diced pepper, lemon and onion halves. The second onion half should be the last thing to go in, it may stick out a little bit
Drizzle olive oil on the skin and season with salt and pepper
Place halved garlic heads in center of a baking tray and place the chicken on top. Roast for 12 minutes, then lower the heat 350° F / 175°C and cook for 1 hour and 20 minutes
Green Beans
Bring a large pot of water to a boil and add in the green beans, cook for 5 minutes. Remove the green beans and place in a bowl of ice water to blanch them and stop the cooking process.
In a separate pan, heat the olive oil and add in the pine nuts on medium heat. Toast for about 3-5 minutes, stirring occasionally so they don’t burn
Add in the green beans, dried parsley, salt and pepper. Cook for about 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Turn the heat low and zest in the lemon and squeeze in the juice
Yorkshire pudding
Prepare the batter. Sift the flour, add the salt and mix. Add in the eggs and half the milk; mix it to combine. Add in the other half of the milk and mix to combine until it is smooth. Put the batter in the fridge to rest for at least 30 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 450° F / 230°C. Pour the vegetable oil into each muffin cup (about 1/4 inch.) Put that in the oven for 5 minutes so it can heat up, it should be smoking slightly.
Remove the batter from the fridge and whisk it again. Pour the batter into each muffin cup about 75% full. Bake for 15-20 minutes. Don’t open the oven when it’s baking or they will fall
Chicken Gravy
Preheat a pan and add in the flour and roast chicken drippings, 4 skinned garlic cloves, and half an onion. Add in about 5 thyme sprigs, tie them together so they are easy to remove later. Season with 1 tsp of salt and 1 tsp of pepper. Allow it to get a deep brown color, about 5-10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Add in 1 cup of chicken broth and stir to combine, allow it to come to a simmer and add in 1 more cup. Cook for about 10-15 minutes stirring occasionally. Last, pick out the onion and thyme. Mash in any garlic pieces that are left.
About This dish
This is one of my takes on Sunday roast. Cooking up a roast on Sunday and eating left overs throughout the week is tradition for some. For this dish I used a whole chicken as the roast, it’s on the smaller side so left overs will go pretty quick! Heavily inspired by Gordon Ramsay. I picked up the idea from him of adding flavored butter under the skin of poultry. This idea works amazingly well with turkey too. I’ve had a lot of potatoes lately, so I skipped those for this. The starch here is Yorkshire pudding. That is another quintessential British side. I’ve never had anything else quite like it. It’s like an exciting version of a biscuit almost. They hold gravy really well.
The green beans, these are fantastic fresh. If you don’t want to get them fresh or can’t, frozen is really good as well. These green beans are exciting because they have a crunch from the pine nuts and some tang form the lemon zest and juice. Last is the home made gravy. Any time you make a roast, there is a lot of juice that you often wouldn’t really have much use for. But in this case, this is gold for the gravy. The flavors put into the chicken get added into the gravy. Remember any time you make gravy, let the roux get a nice deep brown for max flavor. All of this goes together really well to make an absolutely stunning dinner!
