Hakkari-Style Pot Roasted Chicken and Onions
Passover is next week. So is Easter. And it’s always so hard to find something to serve that will work for both feasts. Ham is a popular choice for Easter but of course you can’t eat it for Passover. Lamb is always good, but so is chicken. I prefer the chicken over lamb because it’s pretty universal. Most people enjoy it and there are soooo many things you can do with it.
In the past I’ve roasted it, grilled it, seared it… you name it, I’ve done it. And all of them have been delicious and great options for this Jewish feast. But when I’ve made chicken in the past, it’s always been with chicken breasts. I’ve never roasted a whole chicken before. I don’t know why, I’ve roasted plenty of turkeys for Thanksgiving. But the turkeys always take several hours, and I guess because it takes so long, I was scared to roast a chicken. It only takes about an hour to roast a 3 pound chicken, though. So, I figured why not give it a try.
Well, I found the perfect opportunity thanks to Robyn Eckhardt and David Hagerman. A few months ago I went to an event at Melissa’s Produce where I got to meet the authors of the new cookbook Istanbul & Beyond. It’s a great book with several tasty recipes from all over Turkey. I’ve already made the delicious Royal Purple Cooler, and since that was so good, I knew this roast chicken and onions would be great as well.
What makes this dish really sing are all the onions. If you’re an onion fan, this is the dish for you. It takes not one, not two, not three, but five large onions to make this entreé. That’s right, five. They’re all sliced and then stuffed inside and laid on top of the bird, so that you can’t escape that sweet, caramelized onion flavor. While all the onions are good, the ones caramelized on the bottom of the pan are my favorite. They’re sweet and salty thanks to the oil, butter and chicken juices they’re roasted in. Seriously, if the chicken was all gone, I’d still be licking the bottom of the pan just to get one more onion.
So, you’ve got onions and you’ve got chicken all roasted together in less than two hours. With such an immense amount of flavor for such a little amount of work, I can’t think of a better Passover entreé, especially since there’s plenty of other food to make… like the matzah ball soup, the deviled eggs… the vegetable… Wow, I guess I should get started.
Ingredients
- 5 large brown onions, cut in half and sliced as thin as possible
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 teaspoon black pepper
- 1 (3-4 pound) chicken, rinsed and patted dry
- a handful of thyme sprigs
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.
- Place the onions in a large bowl, making sure you separate the slices. Sprinkle 1 teaspoon of salt over the onions and squeeze and scrunch the onions until they begin to soften, about 30 seconds. Drizzle 1 tablespoon of olive oil over the onions and toss until coated.
- Rub the chicken all over with the remaining oil, salt and pepper. Put a handful of onions inside the chicken. Add the thyme and another handful of onions, or as much as will fit in the chicken's cavity without packing.
- Spread all but a handful of the remaining onions on the bottom of a large cast iron dutch oven. Place the chicken on top, breast side up. Spread the rest of the onions on top of the chicken.
- Pour 1/2 cup of water in the pot so that the onions are covered. Cover the pot and roast for 1 hour and 15 minutes.
- When the buzzer goes off, check the pot. The onions should be a nice golden brown and caramelized. The chicken should be cooked through and browned in some spots. There should be almost no liquid left in the bottom of the pot. (If the chicken and onions aren't golden, uncover the pot and return it to the oven for another 15 - 20 minutes. If the chicken is browned but there's still a lot of water in the bottom of the pot, place it on top of the stove, remove the lid and cook it over medium heat for several minutes until the liquid is cooked off.)
- Remove the chicken from the pot and let rest for 10 minutes. Serve.
