"What I really eat" are my Iron Chef meals. My pantry meals. Shit, my fridge is empty meals. The things that come out of necessity and lack of time. The ingredient list will usually be small and the execution usually simple. Something that is less of a recipe and more of a guideline. If something exceptionally awesome comes out of my Sunday night scramble, it will get posted as a “What I Really Eat” and probably be accompanied with a not-my-best photo.

This is really just roast chicken on top of potatoes and onions. Is this a tale as old as time? Probably. Am I teaching you new things? Probably not.

But this is what this series is all about. It’s not all brown butter and fancy frosting tips in the sizzle & sass kitchen. Sometimes you just gotta eat. And that sometimes is usually a Sunday night at 9pm after a day of burning frittatas, dropping coffee cakes on the floor, and then probably burning something else.

I call this cowboy chicken, because the general idea of it came from a roommate whose many wild woodsman ways reminded me vaguely of a cowboy. A cowboy, not of the southern variety, but of the midwestern -- the Montana type. His version used skin on, bone in chicken thighs with a pat of butter and a garlic clove tucked neatly underneath the skin of each. He placed the thighs on top of roughly chunked potatoes and onions and sent them into the oven to seduce each other into fatty mouthwatering bliss.

The result: crispy garlic laced chicken skin on top of juicy thigh meat, with softly cooked potatoes and caramelized onions coated lovingly in chicken fat beneath.

oh.my.god.

I fussed my version up a bit, unneedingly. I made a compound butter of parsley and garlic paste and smothered an entire bird with the stuff. I sliced my onions instead of chunking them as I do the potatoes.

The same carnal reaction happens in the oven though.The fat and juice from the bird drips onto the potatoes and onions as it roasts and just...oh….

This can be done with any part of the bird, though I highly suggest that it’s with skin on, bone in pieces of meat. Whole legs would be great. I’ve done it with rib in breasts.

The lovely part about this meal is that it is also a “set it and forget it” kinda dinner. You gotta let the chicken just do it’s thang, and that’s usually for the better part of an hour. But then here’s where you get inspired by the ever-genius Michael Ruhlman. See article: here.

I’ll just leave you with that to ponder.

Cowboy Chicken

Inspired by my good friend, Erik

Ingredients:

1 large onion, sliced

1 pound yukon gold potatoes, cut into 1 inch chunks

1 whole roasting chicken (or any other skin on, bone in chicken parts), rinsed and patted dry

3 tablespoons butter

2 cloves garlic

1 tablespoon fresh parsley, finely chopped

salt and pepper

Directions:

Heat oven to 400 degrees.

In a large baking dish or roasting pan layer the onions and potatoes evenly, season with salt and pepper. Place rinsed, dried chicken on top of the potatoes and onions.

Take two cloves of garlic and mince them as finely as possible. Sprinkle with a touch of kosher salt, and then drag the edge of the knife across the minced garlic and sort of flatten it out. Do this several times until the minced garlic has become a paste. (Here is a video displaying what I’m describing. Start at about 1:45)

Take your garlic paste, parsley and butter and mix together in a small bowl until evenly combined.

Spread this compound butter all over the chicken’s skin. Really massage it in there.

Season the bird liberally with salt and pepper, including the inside!

Throw into oven for about an hour or so. It should be uniformly golden and the juices should run clear when you make a small cut between the leg and the thigh.

Let chicken rest about 15 minutes before serving.

*** Two Quick Notes ***

1. The potatoes and onions will probably last a bit longer after the chicken has been picked over. I used mine as a base for eggs for days after. And almost had some left to swirl into some leftover spaghetti squash, but then I might've just eaten it with my fingers cold from the fridge.

2. Use that chicken carcass!!! Make bone broth/chicken stock. Place whatever is left over into a pot with some scraggly vegetables and some other aromatics and simmer away for a few hours. I got about 4 cups of bone broth out of the deal. Straight to the freezer it went to be used in any and everything that calls for stock!