Chicken à la Vegetarian Wife

For a while now I've been on a quest to make a delicious mid-week roast chicken that is compatible with the realities of work/life balance and my vegetarian wife who really, really, really hates handling meat. Everything I've tried has been focused around prepping / salting the bird the night (or day +) ahead and leaving it in the fridge and "oven ready". I've tried spatchcock, whole birds and a various drying / resting / roasting methods with mixed (typically delicious, but room for improvement) results.

Last nights was the most successful by far, and actually one of the easier to execute. It's based on Kenji's "start the bird on the stovetop" method (linked below).

Step 1) 1-2 days in advance – Prep the bird by separating the skin from the meat, then poke a million holes in the skin (similar to cantonese roast pig prep), then salt well and place the bird in a dutch oven and put that in the fridge uncovered. Protip: Find a tiny cooling rack to place inside the dutch oven to allow the bottom of the bird to dry too.

Step 2) The "morning of" – Remove the wire rack from the dutch oven, but keep the bird in the fridge. At this point it's ready to cook.

Step 3) Text the following instructions to the wife (and vegan, buddhist nanny who in this case was actually starting the cook):

CHICKEN!
Alright, here we go:
You’ll find the chicken in a black cast iron in the garage fridge. Put that (as is) on the center-rear burner and apply the lowest heat setting. (and be sure to turn on the hood).
Going from cold to sizzling should take about 10 minutes. You’ll hear sizzling but no smoke.
After sizzling starts, wait 15 minutes (so now your total time is about 25 min), and then put the entire bird/pan into a COLD OVEN and set the temp to 425f and turn on convection (switch on the far right).
I would start all of this at 4:15 please. Thank you! (and call with any questions)

The only real spin on this vs Kenji's method is that I skip browning the thighs and I start with a cold oven. Again, I'm trying to simplify and reduce variables.

The results were great. Crispy, delicious skin. Fall-apart dark meat. Fantastic oysters and chefs bits. The breasts were a touch over, but that's 1) an acceptable trade off and 2) could be improved by pulling the bird a little earlier and letting it rest longer.

Final results mid-carve.