Truly Tender Chicken

For some reason, large chicken nuggets are called "tenders," no matter what their actual texture. Yesterday we prepared a roasted chicken that was truly tender. So tender, in fact, that it was easily cut with a fork.

We started with a kosher chicken from Trader Joe's. I did not take note of the weight, but I think it was about five pounds. We used the vertical roaster (about which we wrote previously in our Just Peachy post). When we bottled Baralo a few months ago, we had more wine than corks, and decided just to store the excess in the fridge as cooking wine, though it would not age properly. We filled the center chamber with some of this wine, and placed new potatoes and a chopped onion from our Colchester CSA around the sides of the pan.

Then I chopped parsley from our garden and dried sage from Colchester, whisking both into a basil olive oil, which we had also received in our farm share recently. I simply rubbed the now triply-infused oil and herbs onto the chicken. We then put the pan in the oven at 375 (convection). After an hour, the internal temperature was only 110, but after another half hour, the chicken was beautifully roasted with internal temperatures from 190 to 200.

The result was complex -- both sweet and savory -- and incredibly tender. Of course we found that properly-bottled Baralo was a perfect pairing for this light and simple meal.