This recipe is based on Lulu’s, with a few small modifications to suit my own tastes. As the chicken roasted, the oven cast its gentle heat through the house, and the scent of ginger and herbs filled every corner. The final step—tossing macaroni in the chicken’s roasting juices—reinforced the homeyness of the dish in the way only simple farmhouse cooking can.

The other morning I was zipping off for a photoshoot and forgot to get dinner started. I started stressing about what to cook when I remember a simple recipe for roast chicken in a mustard sauce that literally takes under a minute to prep. I quickly ran back into the house, got it marinated, then went to my photoshoot confident with the happy feeling that my family would have a nutritious easy-to-cook dinner when I got home that evening.

The Quest: A Simple, Perfectly Roasted Chicken. A humble, seemingly easy dish that unfortunately is as elusive as a unicorn or a five-leaf clover. I mean, how hard should it be to roast the perfect chicken? Let’s analyze what makes it perfect and figure out how to easily do it every single time.