Recipe Review: Garlic and Thyme Roasted Chicken with Crispy Drippings Croutons

Unless we're having guests over, roasting a whole chicken isn't honestly something that we would normally think of doing. But reading Melissa Clark's description in the New York Times a few weeks ago of croutons made golden and crunchy in the pan drippings from a roasted chicken won us over. (We really are suckers for toasted bread in any form!)

Here's a link to Melissa Clark's article and recipe from the New York Times:

• Pan Drippings, Gloriously with recipe for Garlic and Thyme Roasted Chicken with Crispy Drippings Croutons

The chicken was as easy to make as Clark promises. By the time the oven finished pre-heating, we'd prepared the chicken and had it nestled in its bed of day-old bread in a roasting pan. There's no basting or other fussiness in this recipe, so we were able to simply put it in the oven and set the timer.

The trouble started when we checked the chicken after a half an hour. The bird was coloring beautifully, but the bread surrounding it was well on its way to burning. To be fair, we were using a dark-colored pan, but we'd already set the oven temperature a bit lower (as Clark suggests for dark-colored pans) and didn't want to turn it down any lower.

We removed the pieces that were in danger of burning completely and tried to rotate the remaining pieces so that previously exposed parts were now under the chicken and it's drippings. We crossed our fingers and set the timer again.

Forty-five minutes later, the chicken was done. The skin was taut and golden. It wasn't crackling-crispy, but it was definitely crunchy enough to satisfy. The meat was perfectly cooked, incredibly moist, and gently flavored with garlic and thyme. In fact, this was some of the juiciest and most satisfying chicken anyone in our house could remember eating!

The bread, on the other hand, was another story. It wasn't salvageable, frankly. The bread that had been directly under the chicken was completely soggy and pretty unappetizing. The remaining pieces were toasted far beyond being edible. Some of them might have been ok broken up into croutons for a salad, but it definitely wasn't what we'd been expecting.

The toasted bread was disappointing, but the oohs and ahhs over the chicken itself make this a recipe worth keeping. Next time, we're going to try baking it in a light colored roasting dish instead of a casserole pan, which might delay the toasting and do a better job of distributing the drippings from the chicken. We'll also try cutting the bread into thicker pieces or cutting them into large croutons to begin with.

Has anyone else tried this recipe yet?

(Images: Emma Christensen for the Kitchn)

Comments (12)

that chicken looks undercooked and not very appetizing.

What kind of chicken did you use? It doesn't look like there were really any drippings at all.

I would suggest maybe cuting the chicken into halves or quarters and laying it out over the bread, that or use a smaller, rounder pan that fits the chicken better. That is too much pan for that bird.

Ina Garten has a similar recipe that I love. She recommends stuffing the bird with lemon and onion quarters and roasting it on a bed of more onions and lemon. She makes croutons separately and then serves the chicken and pan juices over the croutons.

It's delicious and the recipe is here: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/lemon-chicken-with-croutons-recipe2/index.html

I also had a bit of trouble with the bread. Only two slices were really edible but my they were tasty. Tasty enough or another go. I used fresh ciabatta (slightly toasted before hand... needs must) & glass casserole dish (tiny chicken for tiny me in the tiny flat wasn't worth getting the huge roasting tin out).

Chicken was dee-vine.

That Ina Garten recipe sounds really good too.

I tried this recipe a few weeks ago, with slices of slightly toasted baguette. I agree that the edge slices were VERY crispy but still edible (and they made AMAZING croutons for my chicken salad the next day).

I used a 9x13 baking dish and found that the middle bits of bread were soft on top, but toasty on the bottom which was absolutely delicious. And the chicken was SO good. Definitely good enough to try again. I think that a smaller pan would be a good idea as well for the distribution of chicken juices.

I tried this one too. The chicken was good, the bread turned out ok, but they were essentially huge greasy croutons. Taste was fantastic, but I think I could hear my arteries hardening. We chucked 'em.

My husband made this and I agree that the chicken itself was delicious but that only a few of the croutons were edible by the end of the chicken's cooking time. I think the chicken recipe is a keeper so next time we're going to only put bread around the chicken (not under where it gets super soggy and greasy). My brother in law said he cut the croutons up - even the soggy ones - and tossed them with the chicken in a salad, zuni-chicken-style.

This reminds me of camping with my dad. He'd fry his bread in the bacon fat. Yuck.

I think if I were to make this recipe, I would toast the bread seperately and pour the pan juices over top.

Was your chicken brined or treated with nitrites/nitrates in any way? Not sure if that would have affected the results, but that is the pinkest-skinned cooked chicken I've ever seen!

I made this Monday night in a dutch oven. The chicken was absolutely perfect--juicy and tender. Some bits of crouton were harder than others, but all were flavorful.

Thanks for the comments, everyone! I'm rarin' to try more variations on roasted chicken and croutons.

By the way - theoretically, the chicken I cooked was an all-natural, nothing-added chicken. I took the photos at night, so it might just look pink because the lighting wasn't the greatest. Trust me, it was cooked through and tasted great!

I cooked this Monday night as well, and it turned out to be quite tasty. The flavor of the chicken was mild, but it does smell great when cooking. Would it be wrong to attempt to add more flavor to this?

I did not have trouble with the bread overcooking... I happened across a "day old" baguette at Meijer and it was quite firm needless to say. After cooking, half of the bread was very crispy and only a golden color, while the other half was soaked in drippings. If you didn't mind soggy bits of baguette, the flavor was amazing!