My hubby has been going through my cookbooks and tagging the recipes that he wants me to try.  I was very surprised when he showed me this recipe as any time I have made a roasted chicken he thought that it was too dry.  But it sounded good and I thought I would give it a try...
and it was a hit, we both loved the chicken and the veggies were to die for... YUM!

Balsamic Caramel Chicken with Roasted Vegetables

This recipe came from a cookbook called Aida MollenKamp's Keys to the Kitchen.  I have had this cookbook for a couple of years now and have made a few recipes from it.  I did find that it did take longer to cook the chicken then what the recipe said but otherwise I made it pretty close to the way that the recipe told me too.. with a few changes.  I did like that it was all made in one dish so easy clean up.

Ingredients:
One 4-5 lb roasting chicken
2 tbsp unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper (I used pink Himalayan Salt)
1 lemon, halved
1 cup low sodium chicken broth (I thought I had this but had beef so used a Chicken Maggi Cube and one cup of water)
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
2 tbsp soy sauce (I used Maggi Liquid Seasoning)
2 tbsp honey or agave nectar (I used honey)
6 garlic cloves, peeled and thinly sliced
1 inch fresh ginger, cut in thin slices
10 peppercorns
3 red onions, cut into slices that are 1 inch thick (I only used 2)
1 eggplant cut into 1 inch chunks or 1 lb cherry or grape tomatoes halved (I used half of an eggplant and 1 cup cherry tomatoes)
10 baby carrots

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees
Prepare the chicken by carefully cutting skin away from the chicken.
Stuff  the cut pieces of butter between the skin and chicken.
Salt and pepper chicken
Place one half of the lemon into the chicken cavity and use juice from the second half of the lemon to cover the chicken and rub the lemon rind over the chicken.
Arrange the sliced onions on the baking dish (this will be like the rake for your chicken), place chicken over the onions.
Once oven is preheated place the chicken into the oven and bake at 400 degrees for 30 minutes, until skin is golden brown

While chicken is cooking prepare the glaze by adding the chicken broth, balsalmic vinegar, honey, garlic, ginger and peppercorns into a sauce pan.
Bring ingredients to a boil and then reduce the heat to a simmer and cook until the glaze is approx 1/2 cup approx 5-8 minutes.  Remove the solid part (but keep for later) and set the glaze aside.

When the skin is golden brown, take chicken out of oven and decrease heat to 375 degrees.
Arrange vegetables around chicken.
Using about 1/3 of the glaze, spread glaze over the top of the chicken.
Place back into the oven and cook for another 30 -45 minutes until chicken reaches a heat 165 -170 degrees (I cooked my chicken for about 1 1/2 hours).  Basting the chicken every 10 minutes with the rest of the glaze and the liquid in the pan.  I did put some of the glaze over the vegetables too.
When the chicken is done, remove from the oven and let sit for 10 minutes before cutting.

In the last 10 minutes or so of cooking, you can add the ginger/garlic mixture to the vegetables that you strained out of the glaze.

Cook's Note:  The next time I make this dish I think I will make 1 1/2 of the glaze and use the left over glaze to drizzle over the cooked chicken when serving.  Or I might inject the chicken with some of the glaze so the balsamic caramel flavour goes through all the meat.

If you don't like eggplant then use potatoes instead, or any type of vegetable would work.

As my chicken took longer to cook, I don't think I will put the veggies in right away.  I think I would cook the chicken for maybe 20 minutes and then put them in they did get very soft but still were good.

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