Orange & Herb Roasted Chicken #CooktheBooksClub

Orange & Herb Chicken is a homey delicious recipe the whole family will love!

Hey hey!  It’s time for Cook the Books Club!  In CtBC, participants read the selected book and cook up something delicious!  This month Debra from Eliot’s Eats chose Life from Scratch by Sasha Martin.

The memoir follows Sasha through her difficult upbringing, with poverty, instability, adoption, and death of loved ones.  She had a lot of hardship to overcome, though it eventually led her to happiness.

Her past eventually brought her on a mission to cook across the world from a-z and chronicle her adventures on her blog.  It’s an amazing story of perseverance in many ways, from overcoming the struggles of her childhood to the huge cooking a-z project she undertook (with an infant, no less!)

Quite a few recipes referenced in the story are included in the book.

I chose to make the nice, homey roast chicken Sasha made when she cooked for her boyfriend for the first time.

My family loves roast chicken, so I’m always looking for delicious new variations to try!

I’ve used orange and herbs with roast chicken before, but paprika was a new one for me.

While I loved my previous citrus roast chicken, I loved how the paprika was able to tone down and balance out the acidity of the orange in this preparation.  I used Hungarian paprika in this recipe, however, I think smoked paprika could really be amazing as well (I definitely plan to try that next time!)

This recipe has my family’s seal of approval!

Orange & Herb Roasted Chicken

Recipe from Life from Scratch by Sasha Martin

1 whole chicken (about 5 lbs)

Several springs fresh thyme

1 large sprig fresh rosemary

2 tbsp butter, melted

½ tsp paprika

½ tsp salt

1 orange, zested

3 cloves garlic, smashed

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F and prepare a roasting pan.

Pull the leaves off the thyme and rosemary.  Place the stems in the cavity of the chicken.  Mince the leaves and place in a small bowl.

Add the melted butter, paprika, orange zest, and salt to the bowl with the chopped herbs and stir to mix.

Season the cavity of the chicken with additional salt and paprika.  Add the garlic and orange to the herb stems in the cavity.

Brush the entire chicken with the butter mixture.

Place in the preheated oven and cook for 1-1/2 hours or until a meat thermometer inserted into the breast and thigh reaches 165 degrees F.