Roast chicken with Moroccan spices (serves 2 plus leftovers)

This roast chicken is one of our signature dishes at Rendezvous and is featured on our popular Sunday Prix Fixe menu.  This spice mix is inspired by the Moroccan combination called “ras al hanout”, or “top-shelf”.  Though I designed it specifically for this chicken dish, it can be used also when grilling or roasting other meats.

The recipe for the spice rub below makes about 2 cups total in volume, enough to keep in stock on your spice rack for use over several different meals – a great condiment to have on hand!

For the spice rub:

1C  ground cumin

1/2C ground coriander

2T  hot chili powder

2T  paprika

2T  cinnamon

2T  ground allspice

1T  ground cloves

2T  kosher salt

2T  ground black pepper

1/4C     mixed dried herbs (Italian seasoning or Herbes de Provence)

1t  cayenne pepper

1T  ground anise seed

In a mixing bowl, mix the spices together well.  Store the blended spices in a container with a tight-fitting lid for later use.  This mixture can be made in batches and stored indefinitely.

This spice combination is not intended to be “spicy”, but rather an aromatic blend of “earthy and sweet” flavors that is very familiar in North African cooking.   It is a great example of how to use spices to give lots of personality to cooked foods without necessarily resulting in dishes that are spicy-hot.

At home, I roast the whole chicken in a cast-iron skillet in the oven.  Here’s how I do it:

To prepare the chicken for roasting, rinse the bird inside and out with cold water, and then pat it dry.  In a mixing bowl, rub the chicken with a bit of good olive oil, season it lightly all over with kosher salt and then with the spice mixture.  The bird should be covered lightly — but completely — with the spices.

Preheat the oven to 350F.  Heat a cast-iron skillet on the stove top over a medium flame and add 2T of olive oil to it.  Place the chicken in the skillet and when it starts to spit and crackle put it in the oven and cook for @ 75 minutes (for a three-pound bird), turning it from time to time in order to ensure even cooking throughout.  This method is superior to using a roasting rack because the heat of the cast-iron skillet helps to crisp up the skin of the chicken all over as it roasts.  The chicken is fully cooked when the thigh joints begin to loosen and the juices inside it start to run clear.

Restaurant  method — valuable additional information:

At the restaurant, we roast the chickens usually 4-6 at a time in the oven in the afternoon in preparation for evening service.  After roasting and when they are cool enough to handle, we use a boning knife to remove the breast from the ribcage, leaving the wing bones intact, and we remove the leg at the thighbone.  We separate the drumstick from the thigh, remove the thighbone from the meat, and we usually snack on the tasty drumsticks ourselves!  This is called a partially boned chicken.   We use the leftover ribs, backs and thighbones to make roasted chicken broth.

Crispy on the outside, moist on the inside: It’s very simple: the key a really great roast chicken is making the skin crispy while keeping the meat moist.  When the guest orders the roast chicken in the restaurant, we reheat each half chicken, resting in some roasted broth, under the broiler skin side up.

The sauce that we make for the roast chicken is designed to re-create in larger quantity the flavorful juices that flow from a freshly roasted bird as if you were cooking only one at home for dinner.  To do this, we simmer the leftover bones of the roasted birds in white wine, light chicken stock and water with aromatics (vegetable mirepoix, fresh and dried herbs).  This results in a thin but very flavorful sauce that we then additionally season with fresh rosemary, drops of sherry vinegar, a few crispy fried capers and kosher salt.