Our Herb Butter Roasted Chicken
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Roasting or baking chicken with an herb butter is nothing new. But here's our favorite house version. We usually cook chicken breast, but thighs work very well too.

The important part of this recipe is the herb butter. This is our standard. We use it often (with slight variations) on pork, fish, and vegetables. But chicken is our favorite.

This recipe is one of our first attempts at writing recipes for things that we frequently make, but don't have an official recipe for. Many of our favorites are that way.

4 to 5 chicken breast or thighs, on the bone, with skin attached.

Pickapeppa Sauce

Herb Butter:
6 tbls butter
1 tbls fresh rosemary, finely chopped
1 tsp fresh thyme, finely chopped
2 medium cloves of garlic, finely minced
1 tsp shallot, finely chopped
3/4 tsp salt, kosher or course sea salt
1/2 tsp fresh ground black pepper
1 (heaping) tsp dried lemon zest
1/2 tsp dried mustard

Set the butter out to soften to room temperature. When the butter is soft, mix all the ingredients for the herb butter. Divide the butter into equal portions, matching the number of chicken pieces that you have.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Loosen the skin of the chicken away from the meat. Place a portion of the herb butter under the skin of each piece of chicken. Holding the skin in place, work the butter into an even layer between the skin and the meat. Now, secure the skin in place with 2 or 3 toothpicks (the skin will shrink up as it cooks otherwise).

Place a baking rack on top of a shallow baking pan. Spray with non-stick cooking spray. Place the chicken, skin side up, on the rack. Make sure that the pieces do not touch too much. Add enough water to barely cover the bottom of the baking pan. Brush the top of the chicken with the Pickapeppa Sauce (or Soy Sauce) to help with the browning and flavor.

Bake the chicken for about 45 minutes on middle or lower oven rack, or until the internal temperature reaches 165 degrees. Serve and enjoy.

Cliff Note 1: You can used dried herbs if you don't have fresh, but the taste is not near as good. Using fresh rosemary and dried thyme is okay. Also, you can use fresh lemon zest instead of dried with equally good results. We just always have dried fruit zest that we make ourselves.

Cliff Note 2: It's best if you let the butter sit for at least 30 minutes to let the favor develop. Or, make the herb butter the night before. It also freezes very well.

Cliff Note 3: If cooking chicken breast, I normally put them out at 165 degrees, and let the carry over heat finish the cooking. This makes sure they don't over cook and dry out.