[jyl]

Right now, put chicken in brine, meaning water with lots of salt (taste like seawater) and optionally 1 can froz orange juice. Soak chicken in the brine, refrigerated, for at least 4 hours and up to a day.

4 hours before dinner, remove chicken from brine, dry it off with paper towels, and return to fridge, uncovered, for an hour. Purpose is to dry the skin. Preheat oven to 350F at this time.

Then roast. Basic roasting is simply sprinkle with salt and place in roasting pan, on a rack, breast down. (To avoid overcooking breast meat) Oven stays at 350F. After 1/2 hour, turn breast up (to brown it). Brush melted butter on the bird but especially the breast, 1 or 2 times. (Butter helps brown the skin, keep breast moist, and tastes yummy). Cook to 170F temp (insert thermometer in deepest part of breast and deepest part of thigh joint).

Remove chicken from oven, cover w/ foil to rest while you prepare pan sauce.

You can jazz it up, like Dueller's post, w/ rosemary etc.

Sometimes people stuff the chicken. I prefer to make stuffing on the side, easier and don't end up overcooking the breast just to get stuffing to a safe temp.