Chicken in a Dutch Oven

I don't know if this is really necessary as a recipe, but I kind of wanted to remember the specifications for how we did this, because the chicken really came out perfectly.

Ingredients

• 1 Chicken - ours was about 2.5lbs, but you can go up to 5-6 lbs so long as it fits in your (covered) Dutch oven
• 1/2 lemon, sliced thin
• Something onion-y - we used 2-3 shallots, cut in half (root to tip), though you could use onions.
• Celery - we used about 2 stalks worth, cut down so they fit inside a bird.
• Garlic - about 2 cloves, chopped
• 1:1:1 mixture (ish) of sage, rosemary, and thyme, with a bit of salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 250. Yeah, just 250. Wash the bird thoroughly in lukewarm water, including the inside. Then pat dry with a towel, making sure the outside is quite dry. Insert the onion, celery, and garlic into the bird, then fit the lemon slices in under the skin and in the cavity. We then trussed the bird, but that's not really necessary. Coat with some olive oil and sprinkle liberally with the seasoning mixture to coat the bird.

Place the chicken breast-side up in a lightly oiled dutch oven and cover. Place in the oven for about 80-120 minutes, until a thermometer inserted into the breast is just shy of 160 and the thigh is just shy of 175. Then turn on the broiler onto high and uncover the dutch oven. Let the bird cook just a little while longer (flipping it over after a couple minutes) to brown under the broiler. Remove from oven and cover with the dutch oven lid. Allow to rest for 20-30 minutes.

Thoughts: This was really easy. Why don't we do this more often? We prepared this chicken for use in chicken matzo ball soup (we used the carcass and vegetables again afterward to make the stock). It was really delicious. Would make again. Some recipes recommend searing the chicken FIRST and then just baking it, but I thought, well, it's in the oven already. Why not use that? It worked pretty well, but toward the VERY end the oil started to pop inside the oven. Not great. Maybe searing would be better if we want to eat the skin. OTOH, I could still sear individual pieces AFTER carving it. I think that may be my preferred approach, since it's so much more manageable.

Disaster Index: 1/10