Pear & Vanilla Bean-Brown Butter Roast Chicken
Serves: serves 4
 
Ingredients
  • Vanilla Thyme Brine & Chicken:
  • 8 cups Water
  • 6 tablespoons Kosher Salt
  • 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
  • 1 teaspoon Dried Thyme
  • 1 large Whole Chicken (about 5 pounds) innards removed
  • Vanilla Bean-Brown Butter:
  • 8 tablespoons (1 stick) Unsalted Butter
  • 1 Vanilla Bean, split in half
  • 1 teaspoon Sherry Vinegar
  • ¼ teaspoon Allspice
  • To Roast The Chicken:
  • 1 large Sweet Onion,skin removed, sliced into 8 wedges
  • 3 Bosc Pears, quartered and cored
  • 1 cup Chicken Stock
Instructions
  1. Vanilla Thyme Brine & Chicken:
  2. In a bowl, mix together the water, salt, vanilla, and thyme. Place the chicken in a large gallon sized resealable plastic bag and add the brine until nearly full. Press as much air out of the bag as possible and seal. Refrigerate overnight.
  3. Vanilla Bean-Brown Butter:
  4. Melt the butter in a small saucepan over medium heat, stirring occasionally. Continue cooking the butter, stirring several times to ensure it cooks evenly, until it turns a golden brown and smells toasty. Remove from the heat and use a blunt butter knife to scrape the inside of the vanilla bean pods over the pot, allowing the small vanilla beans to fall into the brown butter. After scraping, add the vanilla pods, vinegar, salt, and allspice to the pot and whisk. Set aside and infuse for 15 minutes.
  5. To Roast The Chicken:
  6. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.
  7. Place the onion wedges and all but 2 slices of the sliced pears inside a small roasting pan.
  8. Remove the chicken from the brine and, rinse gently, and pat dry.
  9. Place the bird in the pan and rub with half of the browned butter mixture, inside and out, getting under the skin of the breast.
  10. Stuff with the two remaining pear quarters. Remove the whole vanilla beans from the browned butter and place inside the chicken as well. Truss the bird. Drizzle the remaining brown butter mixture and chicken stock over the chicken and pears.
  11. Roast for 30 minutes. Reduce the heat to 375 and roast, turning halfway through, for 1 hour 15 minutes to 1 hour 45 minutes longer, until a thermometer inserted into a thigh of the bird reads at 165 degrees.
  12. Allow the chicken to rest for 20 minutes before carving.
Recipe by The Kitchen McCabe at https://www.thekitchenmccabe.com/2016/10/04/pear-vanilla-bean-brown-butter-roast-chicken/