How to Roast a Chicken
Sorry about the delay Kev. Figured I’d post this here in case anyone else wanted to try. It’s pretty much the standard high-heat roasting recipe that any quality restaurant will use and both Thomas Keller and Ruhlman have an almost identical recipe in their books. It’s much easier than it looks or sounds and once you’ve done a few, the whole process is likely no more than 5-10 minutes of actual cooking or prep time.
Read on for step-by-step instructions.
1. Temper the chicken. This means sitting it on the counter, washed and dried, and letting it get as close to room temperature as possible. I usually take the chicken out of the fridge 1-2 hours before cooking. It gives the meat less distance to travel, temperature wise, thus allowing you to cook at a higher temp (so you don’t dry out the outside without cooking the inside).
1.a If you want to make your life a bit easier later on, take the wishbone out now. You can reach into the neck area and scrape around the collar with a knife and feel it. Scrape the meat away, then get on the other side of the wish-bone and cut away there, too. Grab a towel to get a firm grip and pull. It’s liable to break, but that’s ok. This just allows you to very cleanly and easily carve away the entire breast after the bird’s cooked.
2. Preheat your oven to 450 degrees.
3. Season the inside of the cavity with salt and pepper and stuff with a few aromatics. Not stuffed to the lungs, mind you, just a few things placed inside. I like to put sage, rosemary, or thyme cause we always have it readily available from our garden, but you can put a quarter of an onion, a few cloves of garlic (don’t even worry about peeling, or a quarter or half a lemon.
4. Truss the bird. This is probably the most difficult part for a beginner, but one of the most essential. It compacts the chicken so that it cooks evenly. Here’s a great video on how to do it: http://www.chow.com/food-news/53715/how-to-truss-a-chicken/ Once you get the hang of it, it literally takes 15 seconds.
5. Put the chicken in an oven-safe pan, like a 10" cast iron. Season with pepper and looots of salt. Do that thing you see fancy-pants chefs down where they grab a big pinch of salt and rain it down from up high. This more evenly distributes the salt over the top.
6. Stick a probe thermometer in the thickest part of the thigh, being sure not to hit any bones.
7. Put the chicken in the oven and set a timer for 25 minutes. When the timer goes off, lower to 400 degrees. Cook until the thermometer registers 158 degrees. If you don’t have a thermometer, you can check the color of the juices. After about 40 minutes or so, open the oven and tilt the bird so some juices run out of the cavity. If they’re clear, the bird’s cooked. If they’re red, it needs more time. Once you hit that 40 minute mark, check every 10 minutes. It shouldn’t take more than an hour, unless you’ve got a really monster bird.
8. Don’t skip this: let it rest on the counter for at least 15 minutes. Don’t bother tenting with tin foil, it won’t get cold. This allows the bird to stop cooking and for the juices to redistribute. If you cut too early, all the juices will leak out and you’ll have a dry bird.
9. Cut into 6, 8, or 10 pieces and serve. Here’s a great video on the carving pices if you’re unfamiliar: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msscPphcLyo
Comments
hmmm, chicken butties for a week for me if I did a whole chicken…that is not altogether a bad thing
Honestly, that’s part of the appeal for us. We buy whole chickens, and roast them on monday or tueday. I make a quick stock (I can post a quick recipe for that, too, if anyone’s interested) to make soup or risotto from later in the week, and then we proceed to use the rest of the chicken throughout the week in sandwiches, chilis, the aforementioned soups, whatever. A whole chicken usually lasts us a week and we get at least 3-4 dishes out of it.
OK, stock recipes:
“Good Enough” Quick Stock
After dinner, preheat your oven to 180 (it should already be close to it from having roasted your chicken). Throw all the bones in a pot. If you’re willing to chop ‘em up a bit, even better. Helps extra the good stuff. Cover the bones with an inch or two of water. Bring the pot to just below a simmer. You’ll see stuff roiling under the surface, but never any bubbles breaking said surface. Skim the top of any scum of foam. Throw the pot in the oven for 3-4 hours. Turn off the oven, and let the stock cool overnight inside. The next day, whenever you get home, skim any scum and throw in some aromatic veggies — say, a carrot, two ribs of celery and their leaves, and half an onion. Bring the stock back up to a near-simmer and hold it there for an hour. Strain the stock and either use, refrigerate, or freeze. If you wanna be extra fancy, throw a dish towel in your colander to strain it really well.
Regular-style stock
Throw all the bones in a pot. If you’re willing to chop ‘em up a bit, even better. Helps extra the good stuff. Cover the bones with an inch or two of water. Bring the pot to just below a simmer. You’ll see stuff roiling under the surface, but never any bubbles breaking said surface. Skim the top of any scum of foam. Keep the stock at an almost-simmer for 3-4 hours, skimming regularly. Throw in some aromatic veggies — say, a carrot, two ribs of celery and their leaves, and half an onion. Almost-simmer an hour. Strain the stock and either use, refrigerate, or freeze. If you wanna be extra fancy, throw a dish towel in your colander to strain it really well.
One final note: Yes, there is a bacteria warning with the Good Enough stock. It’s possible you could grow bacteria in the pot. It is, however, very very unlikely if you just leave it in the pot because you’ll have killed all the bacteria inside there. Just be sure to bring the stock back to a near-simmer when you add the veggies to be sure and kill anything that grew in there.
O.K. I"m about to get started on this. Thanks. I’ve got a 3.4 lb. bird.
Also, don’t forget about a pan sauce! There’ll be some great chicken fat left in there you can whip into a great sauce while the chicken rests. A few ideas:
1. Make a roux ahead of time. It’s 1 part butter and 1 part flour by weight. Melt the butter in a pan. Once it stops foaming, add the flour. Whisk vigorously over high heat. As time goes on, the mixture will stop clumping and start flowing like a liquid. Cook until beige in color. You can make a bunch of roux at once and keep in your fridge for a long, long time and use as needed.
After your chicken’s done: Deglaze with a splash to a quarter cup of white wine. Scrape up anything stuck to the pan. Add chicken stock (perhaps, made and frozen from your last roast chicken), a bay leaf, and some pepper and simmer until reduced by half. Add roux to thicken.
2. Deglaze pan with a splash of white wine and cook unti liquid is almost entirely evaporated. Add sliced carrots and onion and cook until soft. Add chicken stock or water and reduce by half.
Just got done eating. Turned out great. Kids loved it. I loved it. Although admittedly I didn’t have time to watch the carving video so I butchered it pretty badly. Which is not the end of the world since we’re going to be busy all week and not get a chance to eat any leftovers anyway. But given how well it turned out and that both kids liked it a lot, I’ll definitely get in the habit of cooking one and using it throughout the week. I just need to check out that carving video before next time though.
Very glad to hear! Yeah, def check out that video. There’s just a few key places to know where to cut so you don’t end up hacking/breaking bones and tearing the skin.