Roasted chicken with mango salsa

Okay, I admit...this is a summer meal. It turned out so well that I'm perfectly willing to dig up the photos months later.

Don't let the winter months stop you, though. If you can find tasty mangoes, go for it! The flavors may just find you thinking of warm summer evenings even as snow falls outside.







Roasted chicken

1 whole chicken
1 fennel
3-4 lemons, quartered and zested
1 onion
Fresh Italian parsley
Butter, salt & pepper

Start the evening off by preheating the oven to 475*.
Take the chicken and stuff it with some quarted lemons and half the bulb of the fennel, quartered.
Next, use your fingers to loosen the skin over the breast of the bird. Take some of the fennel fronds, some of the parsley, and a bit of lemon zest and stuff it under the skin.
Put it all in a baking dish and pour melted butter over Mr. Chicken.
Add a healthy few sprinkles of kosher salt and some fresh cracked pepper.
Add some more quartered lemons, the green stalks of the fennel, and a rough chopped onion to the dish.

Bake at 475* for 20 minutes, or until the chicken is nicely browned.
Lower the temperature to 350* and cook until a meat thermometer reads 165* at the thigh.







Mango Salsa


2-3 ripe mangoes, diced
1/2 small red onion, diced
Fresh cilantro, chiffonade
Olive oil
Cumin
Salt and pepper

Mix the mangoes, onion, and cilantro together. Drizzle with olive oil until moistened.
Season to taste with cumin, salt & pepper.
Refrigerate for at least 1 hour (or overnight) to mingle the flavors



Serve the chicken either halved or quartered, depending on your appetite.
We like chicken, so I serve it halved.

Accompany this with fresh seasonal vegetables of your choice. I used some amazingly sweet corn on the cob, and included a generous dallop of my infamous 'mashed taters' on the side.

Technorati: chicken : entree : mango : sides : The Bizarre Kitchen Incident