A Salute to ReTorte and her Delicious Lemon Basil Chicken!

I’d like to give a shout out to The Wandering Coyote. She is a great writer, a kick-ass chef and all around cool person. She is also on of my favorite food bloggers, writing up and sharing some good recipes over at ReTorte.

One of the many amazing series she’s involved with is 101 Uses for a Roasted Chicken. There has not been a chicken recipe of hers that we haven’t enjoyed. The fav still stands at the lemon artichoke chicken (her recipe is Here) but I assure you…try any of her recipes and you’ll end up with a Coyote Recipe File like I have!


This is a recent Coyote posting from Magazine Monday and 101 Uses for a Roasted Chicken.

With lots of lemon and basil. Simple yet elegant ……and comfort food as well.



We found a big fat roaster – 6 pounds, it looked like a teen aged turkey – and wow, you ought to see the leftovers. With the lemon stuffed inside the cavity this assured the meat would be moist with a faint taste of lemon. I modified Wandering Coyote's recipe slightly using more lemon and garlic.




Ingredients used are..........

2 lemons
5 garlic cloves, 2 were cut in chunks and the rest were diced
1/4 cup minced fresh basil, divided
1 roasting chicken
1 tbsp butter, shaved
salt & pepper

Zest one whole lemon then cut in half. Juice the lemons and set juice aside.

Slice two garlic cloves into chunks. Place sliced garlic, 2 tbsp basil, and an entire lemon, cut in half, inside the chicken cavity.



Place chicken, breast side up, in roasting pan and pour lemon juice over the bird and inside the little crevices of the wings.

Take remaining chopped garlic & press into the bird along with the lemon zest. Then I shaved off little pieces of butter, not much and wedged them into the creases and put a few thin sheets over the breast. Salt and pepper, put a bit more basil on it and get ready to roast.



Since this roaster weighed in at almost 6 pounds I roasted at 350 degrees for 2 hours.

The house had a tantalizing aroma of roasted meat and lemon...fabulous and really whets the appetite.

Now let it sit for 15 minutes if you can stand it....look at it all browned and garlicy and lemony..... mmmmmmmmm



Serve it with green beans and a glass of Black Box wine, the Cabernet Sauvignon went well.



We liked this one and it made great soup with the leftover chicken after enjoying two dinners.

There are many wonderful recipes you can find over at ReTorte...just surf on over and see what attracts you. Again, there are just so many that I had to select the most recent one I printed.

Oh...try her quesadillas! You won't be sorry.

Let me know which one becomes one of your favorites :D