Perhaps owing to the fact that this blog began as the days were growing shorter and colder, I've written a lot about comfort foods. Chalk it up to light-deprivation if you will. Even though the days are getting longer now, New York has been pummelled by onslaughts of arctic wind over the past few weeks. The need for comfort food has not abated.

This week it was roast chicken. A good roast chicken is one of the easiest and most satisfying meals you can make yourself. When choosing a chicken, pay a little more for a better bird. Bell & Evans and Murray's are both quality birds you can find in a lot of supermarkets, they cook up juicier and with richer flavor than generic chickens. Small-farm organic chickens can be fantastic, but quality varies. Mass-produced birds from agribusiness outfits like Purdue and Tyson are cheap, but you get what you pay for; they tend to be waxy, bland, and overprocessed (do you really want to eat something prepared by these guys?). If you start with a good bird, you'll have a hard time screwing up this recipe. And the leftovers are great cold or reheated.

Recipe: Roasted Whole Chicken

Ingredients:

• 1 whole chicken, 3-4 lbs.
  
• 3 medium onions
  
• 5 medium carrots
  
• 3 celery stalks, with greens
  
• 5 medium cloves garlic
  
• 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
  
• 1 tbsp dried herbes de provence (a blend available in most spice sections)
  
• salt and fresh-ground black pepper
  

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

Coarsely chop the carrots and celery, quarter the onions, and roughly crush the garlic. Reserve.

If the giblets and neck are inside the cavity of the chicken, remove them. Rinse the chicken inside and out in cold water, and pat dry (again, inside and out) with paper towels. Cut out the wishbone by cutting around both sides of it with a paring knive and pulling it out with your fingers (this makes carving a lot easier).

Sprinkle the inside of the chicken generously with salt and pepper. Stuff the cavity with half an onion, all the garlic, and enough carrots and celery (in equal parts) to fill it up.

Truss the chicken. This step is often overlooked, but it ensures that the light and dark meat cook evenly, and helps the bird retain its juices. Cut a length of kitchen twine three to four times the length of the bird. Bend the wings back to tuck the third joint underneath the first joint. Place the bird breast-side up, neck facing away from you. Put the center of the twine under the triangular tail piece. Bring both ends around the outside of the ends of the drumstick, then bring them down on the insides of the drumsticks, criss-crossing them. Now bring each end of the twine around the side of the bird towards its neck, and pull tightly to bring the legs together. Bring the ends around the outside of the wings and tie them together at the neck, squeezing tightly to make the bird as compact as possible. Cut away any excess twine once you have a secure knot.

Rub the outside of the trussed bird with the olive oil, and sprinkle it with the herbs, about 1 tsp of salt, and a sprinkling of black pepper.

Pile the remaining vegetables into a roasting pan just large enough to hold the chicken, mounding them around the edges of the pan. Place the chicken, breast-side up, on top of the vegetables. Bake at 425 degrees for 60 to 80 minutes (if you still have the neck and giblets, add them to the pan after about 40 minutes, excluding the liver). To test whether the chicken is done, prick the thickest part of one thigh with a fork or skewer. The juices should be faintly rosy. If they are completely clear, your chicken is overdone.

Remove the pan from the oven, set the bird on a separate carving board, and loosely cover it with tin foil. It should rest for about ten minutes before you carve it. If you don't let it rest, the juices will spill out all over your carving board instead of staying in the meat where they belong. You can use this time to make a pan gravy. More on that tomorrow.