Roast chicken

It’s often said that the sign of a good cook is his or her skill at roasting a chicken, and certainly this basic task is not as easy as it might seem. On the other hand, it’s not that difficult once you know a few “secrets.” chief among them being high oven heat.

If you have a great chicken—which is not easy to come by—the process is even easier: Take some salt and pepper, roast the chicken, and serve it. But since we have trouble finding a great chicken, we’re assuming you will too. So we take a couple of extra measures to make sure that the roasted bird tastes great: We brine it lightly beforehand, and we cook it with plenty of seasonings, including butter. This avoids both mushy texture and predictable blandness.