Gochujang Roast Chicken & Potatoes

I am thankful that I am able to cook and create beautiful food to share w/ you, my friends. It keeps me sane thru times like these.

Even during this difficult time, we can find ways to help one another thru food and positivity.

Food is love, and we can all use some of that right now.

Since we are all stuck at home on Facebook, Netflix, instagram and every other social media outlet......let's share recipes, photos, and good ideas.

Bake some bread with your kids....make cookies.......clean out your closets.........cook this Gochujang Chicken!

Wait, what?
Gochujang? What is that?

It is a Korean chili paste, and believe me, if I didn't have a food blog, I would never have known either.

There are so many condiments, seasonings, spices and ingredients out there, that we probably never would try unless someone tells you about it.

Well, I am telling you about it now....so go get some of this yummy stuff.
It is so easy to find sepcialty ingredients these days.

There is amazon grocery.....specialty Asian food stores and believe it or not, the local Shop Rite had gochujang, and 3 different brands to boot (and there is not a run on chili paste like there is on toilet paper!).

I will post the link here for the recipe, so you can watch the video and get the full recipe.

It is quite easy to make.

Here is the Cliff Notes version:

Preheat oven to 300F. The idea here is slow roasting the bird, so it gets nice and sticky and yummy.

Cut 2 whole heads of garlic in half (horizontally).

You mix 5 tbsp of the chili paste w/ 1/4 cup olive oil and 3 garlic cloves (grated with a microplane) from one of the garlic heads, in a bowl.

Mix half of the magic sauce with some small Yukon gold or tiny potatoes and lay the taters in a 12" cast iron skillet. Season the potatoes with kosher salt & pepper.

Tie the legs of a 4 lb. chicken and throw half of garlic head that you used for the sauce into the cavity. Lay the other halved garlic heads (leave the peels on) in with the potatoes.

Slather this red stuff all over your bird and season with kosher salt & pepper.
You're pretty much done.

Place the skillet in a 300F oven for 2.5 hours (recipe says 3 hours, but mine was done at 2.5).

Important: Let the bird rest 15 minutes before slicing.

While the bird is cooling on the counter, smash the potatoes with a spoon and squeeze a lime over the pan along with a tablespoon of honey. This will thicken all the juices and make a yummy sticky sauce.

Slice the bird as you like and lay back in the skillet next to the potatoes.
Garnish with sliced scallions. (I think cilantro would be better, just my 2 cents).

This was a nice change to my weekly roast chicken.

Try something new this week! Your family will love it!

Hang in there guys, we are all in this together. We will be ok.
xo