Fig & Rosemary Glazed Chicken

I’m getting much better at being a real cook. I mean, I know how to cook a lot of things but chickens (and whole chickens to be specific) were not on my “know how to cook” list until this year. Yes, yes I realize that’s silly. They just scared the crap out of me. So many variable and so much could go wrong! I could overcook and burn (you can thank Clark Griswald for that fear), undercook and poison my guests, mess up the skin or miss the seasoning… Like I said, so much could go wrong! Well guess what? Not anymore!

I’ve been playing around with baking chickens lately and I happened to be able to put this little number together. Often times I use what I have on hand and I just so happened to have a practically full jar of fig jam leftover from fig burgers to use. What on earth could I slather that on? A friggin’ chicken that’s what!

This sweet and savory combination is perfect and one I will probably make again next time my mom comes to visit. It’s a very mother’s day or Easter (spring) sort of dish in my opinion. I served it with lemon-asparagus risotto and a few large shavings of fresh parmesan. Enjoy!

Fig & Rosemary Glazed Chicken

Serves 4-6

Clues

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

In a small bowl combine softened butter, half of the garlic and half of the other herbs, stirring to combine. Using fingers, separate the skin covering the chicken breasts from the meat of the breasts. Using fingers rub the butter between the skin and the chicken breast meat, evenly over both breasts.

In a small sauce pan, combine the fig preserves, all the remaining herbs, salt and pepper, and balsamic glaze. Bring the mixture to a simmer and ensure that the balsamic is syrupy and sticky like a glaze. Remove from the heat.

Place chicken onto the roasting rack with the wing side up. Baste with a bit of the balsamic glaze. Roast with wing side up for 15 minutes.

Using tongs, flip the chicken so it is sitting with the opposite wing up in the roasting rack and roast for another 15 minutes and baste with glaze.

Flip once more, so that the breast side is facing up - and roast bird for 30 minutes, or until the breast meat registers 160 degrees and the dark thigh meat registers 175.

Continue to baste the bird with the balsamic fig sauce until it comes from the oven.

Remove from oven and tent chicken with foil.

Let rest for 10 minutes before carving.

For balsamic glaze: Get a sauce pan and a bottle of vinegar. Over low or medium low heat, pour 1-2 cups of vinegar into the sauce pan. This will reduce ALOT, so use double the amount of vinegar you want to end up with. If you need ½ cup glaze, use 1 cup of vinegar.

Ingredients

1 Whole Chicken, thawed and giblets removed and patted dry

½ cup Balsamic Glaze (buy or make your own, see below)

3 Cloves Garlic, minced

3 Sprigs Rosemary, destemmed and minced

2 tsp Salt

1 tsp Pepper

¼ cup Butter, softened

¾ cup Fig Preserves