Splayed Roast Chicken With Caramelized Ramps Recipe (2024)

Splaying is the best way to roast a chicken. I've found that a 450 oven works just fine, and avoids the smoking and splattering of fat inside the oven as happens if it's set at 500 as per the recipe. It will just a few more minutes to roast.

An extraordinarily delicious - and easy - roast chicken recipe that has become a staple in our house. If you cannot find ramps, use (very fresh) scallions - lots of them, both green and white parts. Don't be afraid to increase the amount of capers, too.

Buy a cast iron skillet. Its a cook's essential. I keep mine on the stovetop and use it for everything...the more you use it the better it is. Forget non stick skillets...they are fraught with problems and health concerns. Just clean with stiff (OXO) brush and steaming hot water. A real workhorse at a very cheap price (12" is about $25)

I always use green onions (3 bunches) and lots of garlic and it's excellent!

I have cooked this several times and always reduced the heat to approx 425 (220 C) after some 20 minutes or so, depending on color of the skin.I only use fresh ramps from my garden and if I don't have these I use scallions and have even tried with small leeks. Works well too.

Wow! It's my new favorite chicken recipe too! Absolutely delicious! I paired this with Mark Bittman's Roasted Carrots with Brown Butter Vinaigrette, which made for a beautiful, decadent meal!

At 500 degrees, this set off not only my smoke detector but the one from the apartment building out in the hallway. Definitely scale back the heat to 450 at most.

The 'splayed' technique works a treat, especially if your chicken's still very cold from the fridge (sometimes life gets in the way of perfect-prep).
I used an enamelled cast-iron roasting tray, and dried the chicken really well before seasoning/oiling/buttering (this will prevent splattering in the oven).

Skin comes out lovely brown and crispy. I often add yams and potatoes, leeks, whole garlic cloves, etc. My high-sided 9" Le Cruset cast iron frying pan easily holds a 5lb chicken.

Since ramps are not out yet I used spinach. I added it once the chicken was removed from the pan and let it wilt. Excellent.

Scallions make a decent substitution.Add late to the pot

Finger-licking delicious, but with two minutes to go, five firefighters showed up at my apartment door. Not kidding. If you don’t have fantastic ventilation, proceed with caution.

Wow. Terrific. Added garlic. Added chicken broth. Held the temperature to 425 because higher temperatures would create household smoke/issues/odor. My mother declared this was one of her all time favorite chicken preparations... and she’s an accomplished cook who is 80. I forgot to mention, I also subbed scallions because acquiring ramps is nearly impossible while we quarantine in place.

This is my favorite way to roast chicken. I haven’t had access to ramps but have prepared this with chopped leeks and it is the most delicious chicken I have ever had. I add the leeks to the skillet after the chicken has roasted a half hour (as you would with the ramp bulbs). When I carve the chicken I cut into bite size pieces which I toss back in the cast iron skillet with the leeks and stir over heat for a minute or two, then serve with the pan juices over rice. So easy and delicious.

I was at a vacatrental condo & I made this without the ramps (sad face) & combined with Mark Bittman's recipe. We brought our cast iron pan because who doesn't? I followed mostly this recipe, except I turned it to 350° after about 20 min to finish; the last time I cooked so long at 500° the house was filled with smoke; I didn't want to risk it in a rental. It was wonderful. I liked the simplicity of Bittman's recipe and the nuances of this one. It is a keeper. I'm home & about to do it again.

Sent my husband to shop for this recipe and he picked up fennel instead of ramps. Delicious mistake!

We’ve done this on our Weber grill too! Let the cast iron pan get nice and hot on indirect heat. Smoke is no problem outdoors! It’s been our go to recipe for many years now.

Really really good. Followed the recipe exactly other than subbing green onion for ramps and adding in some radishes I had in the fridge. No issue with the 500 degree cooking temperature.

This recipe floored me and my husband. So yummy. The only change I made to the recipe was to lower the heat to 450 and cook a bit longer.

This was absolutely fantastic exactly as written. Will make note to use scallions for the other 49 wks. of the year!

Triple or quadruple the amount of garlic and ramps then deglaze with white wine while the chicken is resting. Euphoria

I live in Germany so I used a relative of Ramps, called Baurlauch. Here we don't harvest the bulbs (don't want to run out next year, do we?) so I treated the stems as bulbs and threw in some scallion whites as well, then used the baerlauch leaves later. That sauce is amazing. Fans of alliums this is your roast chicken! Use an instant-read thermometer if you are picky about your chicken being exactly to your liking - if I'd followed the recipe as is I would have overcooked my chicken.

Providing the desired internal temperature to me measured by a meat thermometer would have been helpful.

How do you think this would work with a 6 pound chicken? The market was clear of smaller birds for tomorrow’s holiday, and I have my heart set on this recipe…

When cooking a whole chicken I Always “pop” the hip and knee joints. It just makes it so much easier to have light and dark meat ready together. I do this with turkey also, though admittedly it is harder to do. Whether you truss the legs or not, always pop the hips and knees. If you are grilling whole legs, pop the knees for even cooking. Plus it is easier to eat.

Fantastic roast chicken, juicy, crisp skin, beautiful brown color. Much easier than spatch co*cking the bird and makes trimming the leg away much easier than if bird were whole. This is my go to roast chicken method.

Good recipe. I followed others' advice to reduce oven temp. to 450. Still had to open windows and set up two powerful fans. Smoke alarm did not go off, though. The results were delicious, and chicken skin nicely browned, but next time I'll try putting the cast-iron skillet in the Big Green Egg. Will also use at least twice as many capers and ramps (or leeks). Bonus: got two quarts of good broth from boiling the bones (and trimmed extra fat, skin) after carving the chicken. Waste not, want not!

@clarkbar does it again. I'll never roast a chicken any other way. What have I been thinking?!!!

this was so good it knocked my "thing" in the dirt, as we say down south. I think my over runs hot, so the ramps got too charred for my wife's liking, so I got to eat most of them, which is a good thing. Next time I will keep a closer watch and triple the amount of ramps.