Giving The Happy Whisk the Bird

One of my favorite real/imaginary colleagues in the blogosphere, The Happy Whisk, just celebrated two years of blogging about food and having jobs and a coupon fetish and her dogs and husband and other stuff. I've never met her in real life, but she seems like an all-round cool gal. The anniversary reminded me that I tried out a roasted chicken approach she blogged about while I was suffering in dissertation hell and never got around to posting it on the other blog.

Here's her chicken roasted in a cast iron skillet in the oven, sitting on potatoes, onions, and dosed with Hungarian paprika:

Hardcore. And then there's this close up of some of the onions lounging in the drippings:

Holy shit. After asking her about it in the comments I went out and bought some better paprika (better than I had at the time, not better than hers) and went at it myself while procrastinating on the stupid diss. Not as photogenic but still delicious, and putting cast-iron in the oven just makes me feel good about whatever the hell I'm doing. Probably I should have just left it roasting another 20 minutes.

I had a hard time getting a decent shot of onions in focus with my camera, but either way, they weren't the food-porn quality of browned onions the Whisk pulled off up there.

 
Rending the chicken's very breast and dunking it in its own juices!

You shall not escape my ravaging fork, thou Onion!

So yeah, I just stood at the stove eating right from the skillet. Then I'd cover it up and then walk back to it 10 minutes later and resume the orgy. I live alone, so that's what it means to cook a dish like this just for the hell of it. Solo food orgy!

Thanks to The Happy Whisk for the inspiration and the know-how! You rock!