Recipe: Roast Farm Chicken with Lemon-Thyme Butter
In our chef's guide to spring entertaining, Woods Hill Table owner Kristin Canty shows us how to throw a successful spring get-together with recipes you can make at home. Below, learn how to make a perfectly burnished free-range chicken.
A perfectly burnished free-range chicken makes its way to the table in a Staub dish. / Photograph by Pat Piasecki
Roast Farm Chicken with Lemon-Thyme Butter
Serves 8 to 10
- 2 tbsp. lemon thyme
- 1 lb. unsalted butter
- 3 3½-lb. chickens, whole (recommended: Pete & Jen’s Backyard Birds, in Concord)
- Mix butter and lemon thyme together and rub generously all over the tops of the chickens.
- Place the chickens on a rack in an oven heated to 265 degrees Fahrenheit. (If it’s convection, it should be on low fan.) Cook the chickens until the thighs register an internal temperature of 130 degrees, about 45 minutes to an hour. Raise oven temperature to 415 degrees and increase fan speed to high if using convection. Cook until skin is a dark golden brown, about 7 to 10 minutes. Remove chickens from oven and let rest about 20 minutes.
