Keller's Ad Hoc Roast Chicken

I made Thomas Keller's roast chicken recipe from his Ad Hoc cookbook.  It is so easy and so delicious; I've more or less forgotten if there is another way to roast a chicken.

The seasoning is perfect.  Roasting it on a bed of root vegetables makes certain all that delicious fat, butter and seasoning doesn't go to waste.  You get deliciously caramelized carrots and potatoes which are almost better than the chicken itself.  Roasting it in an iron skillet concentrates that effect.  I find that when I do it in a roasting pan, the drippings burn and boil off without properly coating the veggies.  A tragic outcome.

Two things that are not mentioned in the recipe but should always happen are: giblet gravy and post dinner stock making.  The stock from this bird will make it into a risotto experiment later this weekend. . .