Grampa's Chicken & Onions

A few times a year I go visit my grandfather in either Florida or New York, and aside from his pickled herring for breakfast (I'll just have a bagel, thanks), the food's usually great. Baked eggplant parm, lentil soup, damn good bagels. For some reason I've had roast chicken on the mind recently, so I called to get his recipe, which is cooked in a pyrex dish with onions and potatoes, and there's few things better than onions & potatoes cooked in chicken fat. Of course when I asked about it he shrugged and passed the phone over to his wife, but I'm calling it Grampa's chicken anyway. So there.

This is everything I want in a dinner: easy, one dish, and friggin' delicious. You basically chop op the onions and potatoes, put them in a pan with the chicken, season, bake, and serve in the pan, nothing to wash but a knife, cutting board, and said pan, after you finish the chicken. The whole thing takes an hour or two (depending on your chicken), but active time is about 15 minutes, tops. Sounds about right for a worknight.

I left the onions in quarters to save space, but sliced thin is better.

Grampa's Roast Chicken & Onions
1 chicken, or assorted bone- and skin-on chicken parts
A few onions
A few waxy potatoes, washed
4-5 garlic cloves
Olive oil
Salt &  pepper
Herbs/spices of your choice
Chicken broth
A splash of white wine (optional)
Any other veggies you want to roast (optional)


1) Preheat the oven to 350. Give the chicken a rinse & pat it dry. (I used a pair of chicken breasts - whole bird's a bit much for one person.) Set it in the biggest pyrex baking dish you've got, with a little olive oil underneath to keep it from sticking.

2) Cut the potatoes into quarters. Slice the onions. Arrange them and the garlic cloves around the chicken in the dish. Any other vegetables you feel like roasting should go in here too - I'm thinking cauliflower would be good.

3) Add in enough broth to fill about a centimeter up the side of the pan, plus a splash or two of white wine if you've got it handy. Drizzle a little olive oil over top, then salt, pepper, whatever herbs you like (I used sage and smoked paprika; rosemary or thyme would be good too).

4) Roast for about an hour at 350, depending on the size of the chicken, then finish it off for 15 minutes at 400 to crisp the skin. It's done when the you can easily stick a fork into the potatoes, the juices run clear, and there's no pink when you cut into it.


5) Serve with a simple green salad (arugula & avocado did it for me), all doused in the chicken juices from the pan. Feel free to pour the fat off the top if you like, but that's kind of missing the point.