The meat of a roast chicken is all well and good, but it’s the skin that I really adore. Getting it as crisp and burnished as possible is my goal for every bird; if I can hear it crackle like a potato chip, I know I’ve gotten close.
Strategies for achieving this abound. You can leave the bird uncovered in the fridge overnight, or blast it with a hair dryer. You can rub it down with salt or baking powder or both. Some cooks recommend separating the skin from the flesh, poking holes as you go to release the fat. All of these methods work, to varying degrees.
But the fastest, simplest and perhaps most delicious way to get chicken skin as crunchy as a strip of fried bacon is to turn it into a giant frico — that is, to coat the bird with enough grated Parmesan so that, as it roasts, the skin turns into one big, salty, schmaltz-infused cheese wafer.
However, it did take a few tries to get it right. Its ultimate success depends on when you apply the cheese. Add it too early, and it burns a little, imbuing the meat with a scorched flavor. Sprinkle it on too late, and the skin gets more leathery than crisp. I found that adding the cheese halfway through roasting was perfect, with the Parmesan melting and bubbling into a crackerlike coating that wraps the bird in a crisp, umami embrace. There’s nothing quite like it.
With skin this good, I took the less-is-more approach with the other flavors. I mixed some fresh rosemary into the salt rub because it seemed like a natural fit for the chicken and Parmesan, and used some lemon zest for its citrus perfume. Then I added plenty of freshly ground black pepper, and a big pinch of red-pepper flakes, to lend the heat and astringency necessary to cut some of the richness.
Finally, instead of making a sauce, I squeezed juice from the zested lemon into the pan drippings, and called it a day. It was as fine a dinner as I’d ever cooked, and for an easy roast chicken recipe made from simple ingredients, that’s saying a lot.