The Easiest Cast-Iron Roast Chicken & Potatoes Ever

Like this.

[food crunching]

Like incredible.

[upbeat music]

The genesis of this dish

came about because we were trying to think of

what is the simplest possible recipe for roast chicken.

Like so simple that you could text it to a friend.

Oven temperature, enough salt

and the cooking vessel

I think have a lot to do with your ultimate outcome.

So first step before you season the bird is to pat it dry.

This is already looking fairly dry.

Drier meat is gonna get browner.

The other thing that you can do

is to season the chicken in advance.

I like to season the cavity first.

There's no real art or science to this

but just kind of get it in there.

That is gonna season the meat from the inside out.

So now that's just gonna sit there

and rest for a sec okay?

So tying the legs, it's as much like a presentation thing,

you know as anything else.

Also that'll mean the chicken's

a little bit more upright and I like to tuck the wingtips

behind and underneath the breast.

An additional little coating of fat is not essential

but fat helps transfer heat.

And a light coating like this

is gonna better channel the heat of the oven

to the skin of the chicken.

It's gonna give you a little bit more rendering

and it's gonna give you a little bit more browning.

[bleeping] Oh we didn't even do the most important thing.

We gotta turn the oven on.

Hot oven alright,

and I'm gonna preheat the oven

with the cast iron right in there.

All right, let's go get a cast iron.

I'm usually looking for one

that's like nicely seasoned

you know, but no kind of like too many crusties

like around the edge there.

This is looking pretty good.

Actually, you know what?

Adjust the rack now.

Okay, like before the oven's hot.

This is a little bit higher than I need it to be.

All right, so we're good there.

Wait, no, we're not good there.

The cast iron needs to go in the oven.

Great talk.

All right, now we're good.

I thought this was a simple roast chicken.

So we're just gonna melt some butter

so it's like melted and just like slightly cooled.

Okay, wonderful.

Now thinly slicing the potatoes.

So thinner sliced potatoes

are gonna equal crispier potatoes, up to a point.

You don't have to stress making these as thin as possible.

It's more about getting them

like a pretty consistent one eighth of an inch thick

than it is about anything else.

Don't try to saw back and forth,

try, you know to just start at the tip

and work your way down.

Okay, next step.

Picking leaves off of thyme.

You can basically just like run your fingers down

and strip the whole thing like in one go.

That is like the thyme dream.

It will never ever be this good.

I have peaked and this video is now over.

Got our melted butter going in.

Obviously the reason for melting the butter

is it's gonna allow the butter

to be dispersed evenly through the potatoes.

So that's just a tablespoon of olive oil

and we just want like a critical mass of fat

coating all of these potatoes.

It's gonna create crispier edges,

it's gonna create more browning

and it's frankly worth taking the time,

so I'm gonna put the thyme in here.

It's worth taking the time

to really move these around by hand

and make sure the fat is coating all of the cut faces.

So freshly ground black pepper,

maybe a pinch more salt.

Okay, so we are ready to put all this in the oven.

So this is a hot skillet, it's preheated.

We can drop this chicken in.

[chicken sizzling]

Using a hot preheated cast iron.

You're starting the cooking process

underneath the chicken very quickly

rather than putting it into a cold pan

and having to have the whole thing come up together.

Just giving it like a little squirt of oil,

just is gonna be further insurance

that the chicken's not gonna stick to the skillet.

So now potatoes can just go in there,

they're gonna cook for a good long time,

so they will cook through.

So it starts out looking like a lot of potatoes

but they're gonna shrink, okay.

And then this can go back in and it's heavy.

So just be careful.

Oh!

Oh wow, this is what I'm talking about.

You've got like these wonderful

crispy, crunchy edges, top and bottom

because like you've also got the potatoes

that are in contact without hot skillet.

Color looks nice,

skin looks good,

everything's like pleasantly rendered, you know,

underside looks good, feeling it.

Know what I love about this like, you know,

normally you roast chicken with vegetables

one thing is kind of excelling at the expense of another.

Both things here are looking pretty slamming.

Okay, the other thing that I like about this recipe,

even though you know of course

like you're gonna get a little bit of like

excess sort of liquid coming out of the chicken here,

but that you can just use to sort of dress the carved meat

and potatoes like as it goes onto your plate.

It's gonna be concentrated, it's gonna be super flavorsome.

In fact, we don't have to wonder, right?

So it's easy to be intimidated by carving a chicken,

frankly, however you do it,

even if the way you do it is

by like ripping hunks of meat off of the bird, that's fine.

I prefer generally speaking

to start by taking the legs off, okay?

You can see there's still plenty of moisture in there, okay?

And resting it, not carving into it immediately

after it comes out of the oven

is gonna help retain that moisture.

Now once the legs are outta the way

it's a lot easier to carve the breast meat off the bones.

Honestly, my favorite part

is just like when your hands are all like chicken-y,

it just like run them along the bird

and just like grab a little bite.

Honestly, that's like the benefit of like, you know,

being the one who cooks all the time.

You get all those like tasty little bites

nobody even has to know about.

So now you've got like your beautiful carved roast chicken

and you still have all that wonderful potato-y business.

Now this looks like a little bit of like

a scene from Dexter, but that's cool.

We're gonna get cleaned up and then we can plate, all right?

These undersides of potato

where it's kind of roasted, you know,

and like captured like the direct heat

at the bottom of the cast iron.

The range of flavors and textures here

is just absolutely supreme.

All right, chicken is plated.

Ines, do you wanna come over, try some roast chicken?

Yeah.

I guess this as good a time as any to ask.

Do you like roast chicken?

I love roast chicken.

Okay, 'cause I was about to get real awkward

if you said anything else.

[Ines laughing]

Do you want the wing or do you want like no wing?

I'll take no wing.

[Chris] Okay.

I'm definitely intrigued by

the sort of like crispy potato action going on here.

Really loving the crunch in there,

the butter, the herb.

Sometimes you get like great roast chicken

but it's hard to build in like a slide dish with it.

At the risk of puffing myself up here,

I feel like you've like, you know,

you're able to get both.

It's very family meal.

It feels very like I'm about to sit down with my family.

You know, everyone's getting a little part.

I think there's something in it for everyone

but it comes together very well.

I think it's really genius to have the potatoes

under the chicken and sort of like,

all of those juices and like that fat coming down.

This is a really simple, very approachable recipe

that I truly think most people can tackle.

And you know, doing it like in the cast iron setup

like that's something that's like an easy, like,

very inexpensive tool to have in your kitchen

that is gonna completely change the way you do,

like more than just roast chickens.

But also roast chicken.

[upbeat music]

[Young] Jess drew this.

[Chris] Jessica drew this?

[Young] Yes.

[Colton] Oh it's a diagram with the chicken?

I need like a compass legend on there.

Is this north?

Where's true north?

[Young laughing]