Glamour Magazine has a legendary roast chicken recipe called Engagement Chicken. The story goes that then-editor Kim Bonnell gave the recipe to her assistant who made it for her boyfriend. A month later, said boyfriend proposed. According to Glamour, then-boyfriend-now-husband said, "It's a meal your wife would make. It got me thinking." The recipe has been handed down from assistant to assistant, and apparently, inspired at least three weddings, leading Bonnell to dub the recipe Engagement Chicken.
Do a search of "Engagement Chicken" on the Internet, and you'll find endless stories of women excitedly telling the World Wide Web, "I made this for him and HE PROPOSED."
I've known of this recipe for years - even back when there wasn't A-Dude-That-I've Been Dating. I've always been both horrified and fascinated by the concept of some magical recipe that can somehow hook a reluctant man to ask for your hand in marriage.
Horrified, because beneath the Engagement Chicken lies a very archaic cultural assumption - that women need to hint, charm and manipulate to get what they want. God forbid a woman talk to her boyfriend about her desire for an engagement and desire for marriage. Instead, she dons an apron, sticks a lemon up a chicken's behind, and crosses her fingers that somehow he'll be so taken by her cooking skills he'll want to be with her forever.
Fascinated, because somewhere in me, there's a twelve year old girl who dreams that one day, a man will want to spend the rest of his life with her. A twelve year old girl who hasn't quite figured out what makes a lovely young man ask a lovely young woman to spend forever with him. A twelve year old girl who still wants to believe in a little bit of magic.
A few weeks ago, when I suggested roasting a chicken for an early dinner with the Dude-That-I've-Been-Dating, I wasn't thinking about charming him with my excellent culinary skills in hopes that he would ask me to marry him.
We've talked about engagement pretty openly in this past year that we've been dating. We both love each other. We both agree we want to marry each other. Neither of us feel like it's time yet, though. We couldn't tell you what exactly we're waiting for. The closest explanation I can come to for myself is this - I'm just not ready to be a married person yet.
And yet, when I scoured the internet for roast chicken recipes, Engagement Chicken came strangely to mind. At first, I thought it'd be hilarious to make the recipe, just as a joke. I wish I could tell you I was that cool and the Dude and I laughed about it later while enjoying succulent chicken thighs, but what followed is what I'd like to call A Ride On the Crazy Train.
The more I read those comments written by women who'd tried the recipe and succeeded in getting a proposal, the more an engagement seemed amazing. I imagined the Dude getting on one knee, pulling out a ring, asking me to spend forever with him. Forget not being ready to be a married person. Of course I wanted to be engaged now. I've found the one - why wouldn't I want to start forever RIGHT NOW?
Then I was plagued with doubts. What if the recipe didn't work? Would I be able to laugh it off? Or would I become sullen and unhappy, thinking that the Dude somehow loved me less because he wasn't driven to propose by this delicious chicken, made lovingly by me?
And then this thought - what if the recipe DID work and he did propose? You know what happens after the bended knee, the ring, and the yes? What happens after all of that is marriage. Marriage as in living together. Forever. Marriage as in socks on the floor. Forever. Marriage as in having to work through your conflict because there's no more escaping back to your own apartment because there is no more "your own apartment." Forever. Marriage is the kind of forever that can only end when one of you dies. Or kills the other.
I am so not ready to be a married person yet.
In the end, I would find a different chicken recipe. One less fraught with the potential for forever, but instead infused with lemon, onions and spices. It's a good thing I did too because when I asked how the Dude how he liked the chicken, he shrugged and said, "Chicken's just chicken. It's not the most flavorful of meats." He said his palate wasn't sophisticated enough to tell what spices had been used. Oh well.
But hey, I love this recipe I'm about to share with you that's inspired by Martha Stewart's Herb Roasted Chicken and Vegetables. It's extremely easy to prepare, and you can cut down prep time if you find pre-cut vegetables.
And, if you get proposed to after making this chicken recipe - I don't want to know.
Roast Chicken with Vegetables - The Non-Engagement Kind
Ingredients
1 whole chicken (about 4 pounds); rinsed and patted dry
Salt
Pepper
1 medium to large lemon, quartered
1 medium onion, quartered
1/2 bunch of parsley
1 tablespoon and 1 teaspoon of dried thyme
2 tablespoons of butter, slightly softened
1 teaspoon olive oil
1/2 cup of dry white wine
Root vegetables, cut into bite-sized pieces - Any kind of root vegetables will do, in the picture I used beets, turnips and onions, but I've also used potatoes and baby carrots.
1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
2. Generously season the chicken inside and out with salt and pepper. Don't forget to rub salt and pepper under the skin of the chicken, starting from the neck and working your way back. Rub thyme into the cavity of the chicken.
3. Stuff the cavity of the chicken with the lemon, onion and parsley.
4. Mix the remaining 1 teaspoon of thyme with the butter. Insert small pats of the thyme-butter between the skin and the breast meat.
5. In a bowl mix vegetables with the olive oil, and season with salt and pepper to taste.
5. Place chicken in the roasting pan and scatter the vegetables around the chicken.
6. Pour the white wine over the vegetables.
7. Roast chicken until the juices run clear when pierced between the breast and leg, about 1 hour. An instant read thermometer inserted in the thickest part of the thigh, avoiding bone, should read 165 degrees.
Tips
If you have kitchen string, you can tie the legs of the chicken together. It makes the chicken look pretty, but the chicken will cook fine without it.
The fine folks at MarthaStewart.com say that to ensure even cooking, you should let your chicken stand for 30 minutes at room temperature before roasting. In fact, Martha has a whole bunch of great tips for the perfect roast chicken.
If your chicken isn't browning too well, you can mix a little bit of melted butter with little bit of chicken stock and baste the chicken. If you're OCD like me, you can baste every 15-20 minutes.
You can substitute the parsley for dill, and use fresh thyme in the cavity and the butter.
If you have a boyfriend and engagement is on your mind, it's ok to bring it up with him. No chicken recipe's going to bring it up for you.
No comments:
Post a Comment