Jeannine takes on Julia

So I finally saw "Julie and Julia".  It was a very entertaining and fun chick flick and I would recommend it. I am not ambitious enough to cook all the recipes in Mastering the Art of French Cooking but I was inspired to try at least one. I love to make roasted chicken, I make it at least twice a month and lately it has been the old reliable for a last minute dinner guest. I decided to take a stab at "Poulet Poele a L'estragon" a fancy way of saying "Casserole-roasted Chicken with Tarragon". Mastering the Art of French Cooking Here is the link to the official recipe (its one of Meryl Streep's favorites): http://www.lhj.com/recipes/easy/chicken/meryl-streeps-amy-adams-julia-child-recipes/?page=2
It was real good and that's because it contained a lot of butter. This is not something I would make that often because I was very uncomfortable with the amount of butter. I had thought about halving it, but then I realized that if I was going to take this on I had to take it on whole heartedly (be that a heart that now just a little closer to some cholesterol medication).  I try to follow the recipe exactly and I think it worked out for me.  My husband liked how moist it was, but he is not into tarragon, which I love. But I thought you could easily substitute garlic or some other flavor.
The recipe did not have many ingredients, basically a chicken, tarragon, onions, carrots salt, pepper and butter. There was a "Brown tarragon sauce" that was suggested to go with it, but I found the chicken juices were plenty.

The recipe took you step by step, so although there were many steps they were easy to follow. I started with a cleaned chick and covered it with about 4 tbs of butter inside and out then stuffed it with tarragon. Make sure it is dried well so that it browns well.

Next step was to truss it, which was I can say did not come out like Julia's.  She used a huge poultry needle to truss, which I did not have, so I kinda just made it up. I figured at least if the legs were tied securely that was good enough.

The next part was a little awkward. I had to brown the entire chicken in a dutch oven (which I didn't have so I used a medium stock pot).  Let's just say we were lucky there were no major injuries.

Once the chicken was browned I took it out of the pan and , yes, added more butter and sauteed the onions and carrots.

Once soft, I put the chicken in the oven and roasted it with the lid on and topped chicken with aluminum foil the  for about 1 hour or more in a 375 oven. Mine my have cooked quickier because of the pot I used.

I basted it a couple times as well.

\

Here is the finished product, we were in such a hurry to eat we forgot to take a picture right away. When it was done I carved it and pour the pan juices over it. By the time I remembered we had eaten half of it. I know this picture is not that attractive, but it really was fantastic.

http://www.lhj.com/recipes/easy/chicken/meryl-streeps-amy-adams-julia-child-recipes/?page=2