Zingerman's Roast Chicken in a Skillet

Possibly the yummiest of the "one pot" recipes I have. It is fabulously easy to make in your grandma's 12" cast iron skillet, but it can also be made in a pyrex glass baking dish.

We made this in no time at all, with stuff we had already in the house (except for the chicken) and it was Umami-central. The nice people at Whole Foods kindly cut the backbone of the chicken out for me and I saved it for soup-making later.

Ari Weinzweig of Zingerman's shared this recipe in Cuisine Magazine and he calls it Lex's Roast Chicken.

1/4 cup olive oil
3 large onions (2 lbs) halved and sliced into half-moons
2 cups celery, sliced

2 tsps lemon zest
1 3/4 tsp coarse sea salt or kosher salt
1 tsp. chopped garlic
1/2 tsp. freshly ground pepper
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes
1/4 cup fresh Italian parsley chopped

2 Tbsp. olive oil
1 3-4 lb chicken, butterflied (backbone removed)
1 tsp. freshly ground pepper
1/2 tsp coarse sea salt or kosher salt

1/2 loaf crusty French bread, sliced 3/4" thick
1/4 cup lemon juice

Preheat oven to 375 F.

In a 12" cast-iron skillet, heat 1/4 cup olive oil and saute celery and onions over medium heat for about 10 minutes. Add in the lemon zest, salt, garlic, pepper, thyme and red pepper flakes. Continue to saute until onions and celery soften and start to turn translucent. Remove from heat, stir in the parsley and set aside in a bowl.

Rub both sides of the chicken with olive oil, a generous amount of salt and pepper.

Lightly oil the skillet (no need to clean it out) and then layer the bread in the skillet so it covers the bottom. Spread the onion mixture on top of it, and then place the butterflied chicken, skin side up on top of the mixture. Pour lemon juice over the chicken.

Roast for 1 to 1-1/2 hours at 375 F. Temperature inside the chicken thigh should reach 160F-165F so keep an eye on it.

Remove from oven, let stand for 10 minutes. Serve cut up chicken pieces over the bread-onion stuffing.

Enjoy!

Serves 4.