Spring Chicken | In Season

Are you craving fresh produce and a bit of color? Good news: you’re right on schedule. The first tender greens and radishes are coming to market in the next few weeks as winter winds down.

This recipe began with its name, a bit of fun wordplay, and turned into a new weeknight favorite. Roast chicken with potatoes is a timeless dish, endlessly adaptable to whatever’s on hand. I thought fresh green herbs and sweet, crunchy, peppery radishes would taste terrific and bring some welcome color to the table (they did). You can use any tender herbs that you like here, but I settled on a mix of parsley, chives, and marjoram, and I recommend using at least two different herbs to bring the most flavor. Parsley and scallions (technically a vegetable, not an herb) would be a good, economical choice.

By roasting the chicken on a bed of fingerling potatoes, lemon, and garlic, you can produce a full dinner, with sauce, in just one pan. As the chicken and the lemon roast, their juices baste the potatoes and create a savory vinaigrette that’s richly perfumed with roasted garlic. Meanwhile, you chop up the herbs and slice the radishes, and those get tossed in just before serving.

Cooking the bird at a relatively high heat speeds up cooking and crisps the skin—making it fast enough for a weeknight but good enough for company. For extra-extra-crisp skin, salt the chicken the night before you plan to make it, set it in a baking dish, then let it sit, uncovered, in your refrigerator.

Get the Recipe: Spring Chicken