Roasted Lemon Chicken with Wild Mushrooms

I stood over the stove and pretty much polished off all of this chicken before it made it onto a plate. This was one of those times when you attempt a new dish and it turns out even better than you had hoped. I actually danced around the kitchen while I ate–it wasn’t a very grand dance, more like slight wriggling, since my “kitchen” is only about 32 inches wide but hey, a dance nonetheless.

The whole chicken is split and slow-roasted on the bone, covered nearly halfway with a lemon and white wine bath. It is surrounded by generous amounts of wild mushrooms, fresh thyme, garlic cloves, and lemon slices. My intention, originally, was to make mashed teeny potatoes (because those are the cutest kind of potato) to eat with this dish but I didn’t get that far or even care to. This dish is rich and complex from the roasted flavors and as bright as the sun is when you’re driving towards it in traffic at that awkward time of the day (but not as painful); this chicken is near perfection.

Ingredients
1 whole chicken, split in half lengthwise with skin on
1 whole lemon, juiced 
1 whole lemon, thinly sliced
15 garlic cloves, peeled 
10 sprigs of fresh thyme, stems removed
1 cup fresh, assorted wild mushrooms (I used yellow oyster, regular oyster, and shiitake) with stems removed and wiped clean
1 cup dry white wine (sauvignon blanc or pinot grigio)
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 425°
2. Rinse chicken halves in cool water and pat dry with paper towels. Sprinkle skin side with smoked paprika, kosher salt, and fresh ground pepper.
3. Over high heat,  heat the olive oil in a heavy bottomed enamel cast iron or cast iron skillet for 45 seconds. Place seasoned chicken halves, skin side down to brown them well. This will take approximately 5 minutes.
4. Once the skin is golden brown, remove chicken halves from skillet and place (reduce the heat to medium under the skillet) in a baking 13″ x 9″ baking dish, skin side up.

5 Add white wine into hot skillet and use a wooden spoon to scrape up the bits in the pan left from browning the chicken. Add lemon juice and garlic cloves and simmer, keeping on medium heat, for 5 minutes.
6. While the liquid is simmering, nestle lemon slices, mushrooms, and thyme all around chicken in baking dish. I left most of the mushrooms whole–they reduce so much in size as they cook and lose moisture, I wanted to leave them in larger pieces. Feel free to chop them, if you prefer!

7. Pour hot liquid evenly over chicken, mushrooms, lemons, and thyme.
8. Roast for 15 minutes then reduce heat to 400° and cook another 45 minutes.

9. Remove from oven and let rest for 10 minutes before standing over stove and eating it all.