I made this chicken on January 23, 2021, along with Alison’s Butter-Tossed Radishes and Garlicky Broccoli with Hazelnuts and Coriander. They were among the very first recipes I made from Alison’s books after receiving them as Christmas presents. Cooking this One Pot Chicken was only my third or fourth time ever roasting a whole chicken, and I reveled in this new skill, and the courage it took to acquire it. (Raw chicken used to really freak me out.)
This early meal provided the inspiration for this project. I had never made a meal using three brand new recipes and found each one to be out of my comfort zone, complex and innovative in flavor, and surprisingly straightforward to cook – all at once. I tasted Za’atar for the first time. I embarked on my first ingredient scavenger hunt to find ground sumac. I’d never thought a flavorful chicken could require so few ingredients. And how many times had I made roasted broccoli before? Alison’s recipe provided a major upgrade to a weekly dinner staple. Never had I learned so much by making a single meal. It was invigorating!
I still hadn’t fully conceived the structure of the Annie and Alison blog. I had ideas, but nothing I’d formally committed to. I knew taking pictures would be an important element of blogging, but didn’t think to capture a bunch of this meal. Four days later, I put pen to paper in earnest and decided to tell friends and family about the cooking challenge. At which point, I told myself I’d remake this One-Pot Chicken so I could get better pictures.
Well, here we are almost a year later, only 29 days left of the project, and I still haven’t recaptured this dish. Which I feel just fine about. Alison’s One Pot Chicken is, in my opinion, one of her most recognized recipes. She’s made a Home Movie about it, A Newsletter about it, and there are hundreds of images of other people making it on Instagram. Do I really need to add my own to that library? I don’t think so.
There’s also not a whole lot more I can say about it that hasn’t already been said in the aforelinkedto media, so I’ll leave my story here: This chicken marks the beginning of one of the best creative endeavors of my life, and for that, it’ll always be special to me.
197 recipes cooked, 28 to go.
can someone please tell me if they’ve ever successfully captured an appetizing picture of a raw chicken? thx.
