With Shabbos followed by Shavuot, I wanted an easy main course for Friday night so I went to my old standby-whole roast chicken, whole. There’s a certain elegance to roasting the whole bird, . It can be carved and it makes a statement-it looks formal, Shabbosdig.

And it is delicious. Whole roast chicken perfectly done is fabulous. Like a perfect black dress, it doesn’t need much, a bit of kosher salt, pepper, paprika and garlic and you’re good to go.

But unless you’ve got an at home rotisserie, roasting whole chicken can be tricky. The problem s technique-how high a heat to use and for how long. If you pump up the heat and cook quickly, your bird may have juicy flavorful breast but bloody thighs and hind quarters (ugh) . If you cook for too long, well the chicken will be done but the breast will be dry and tasteless. Ugh.

Recently, I stumbled on what may be the perfect compromise. A medium high oven 375 fahrenheit for an hour, possible an hour and ten minutes to make sure the chicken is done. Preheat-always preheat your oven and tie the legs together-that helps keep everything together so that it stays juice.

Bake for a half hour at 375 first breast side down basting periodically. Then flip over-this is a tricky process so work slowly and carefully., Then bake another half hour-ovens are idiosyncratic. If the chicken seems underdone, baste and give it another 10 to 15 minutes.. If the bird seems too pale grill for 3 minutes-that’s the equivalent of a tanning salon-otherwise you’ll have burned bird. .

Oh and spicing. You’ve got lots of choices Any barbeque sauce you like -brush on for the last 10 minutes of baking, or simply squeeze a whole lemon, stud a few garlic cloves in the cavity and add salt and pepper and za’ater if you can get your hands on some. It gives a wonderful Middle Eastern flavor. Good Shabbos. Happy Shavuos. Enjoy