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Getting ready to roast a chicken


Arey

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It always seems to take me longer to roast a chicken than it should. I've been wondering if I should take the chicken out of the refrigerator for just an hour or so before cooking it. I have checked my oven temperature, and it seems to be accurate.

"A fool", he said, "would have swallowed it". Samuel Johnson

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In this case Cook's Illustrated Chicken in a Pot. The oven temperature is 250. For a 4 1/2 to 5 lb chicken they say it takes 80 to 110 minutes. For a 3 1/2 4 1/2 chicken they say it will take about an hour. The initial stove top browning takes 8 to 12 minutes. Today I plan on cooking a 4.23 lb Empire Brand Kosher chicken, and no way will that be done in a hour. I usually pay more attention to the dark meat than the breast meat, since the breast meat usually ends up in a sandwich.

A recipe of my own for lemon rosemary roasted chicken that I've developed over the years starts out by preheating the oven to 450 and then:

Put the chicken breast side up, and roast for 10 minutes. Turn the chicken on one side, baste with lemon, and roast for another 10 minutes. Turn the chicken on the other side, baste with lemon and roast another 10 minutes.

Reduce heat to 375°. Turn the chicken breast up and roast for another hour until the thigh registers 170° on an instant read thermometer. Baste the chicken regularly while it is roasting using the pan juices. Add chicken broth to the pan if necessary. Total cooking time about 1 hr. 30 mins to 2 hrs for a 4 lb. Chicken.

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"A fool", he said, "would have swallowed it". Samuel Johnson

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With regard to the Cook's Illustrated recipe:

I don't know how the pot affects things, but I wouldn't expect a 4.5-5 pound chicken to be done in 80-110 minutes at only 250 F.

I use the Marcella Hazan recipe which does each side at 350 F and finishes for 20 minutes at 400, and she recommends 20-25 minutes per pound.

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Those times sound about right to me for a chicken in a heavy cast iron Dutch oven. I've made that recipe several times.

You are browning the bird for 10-15 minutes and then placing the Dutch oven on the very bottom rack of the oven (that's the critical detail.)

Preheating the lid won't hurt.

~Martin :)

I just don't want to look back and think "I could have eaten that."

Unsupervised, rebellious, radical agrarian experimenter, minimalist penny-pincher, and adventurous cook. Crotchety, cantankerous, terse curmudgeon, non-conformist, and contrarian who questions everything!

The best thing about a vegetable garden is all the meat you can hunt and trap out of it!

 

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If you want to roast a chicken real fast try Jacques Pépin's Quick-Roasted Chicken method where he splits the bird and cuts into the joints before giving the bird a head start in a skillet over high heat.

It's one of my favorite methods.

Also detailed in the following video starting at about 5:18.......

Edited by DiggingDogFarm (log)
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~Martin :)

I just don't want to look back and think "I could have eaten that."

Unsupervised, rebellious, radical agrarian experimenter, minimalist penny-pincher, and adventurous cook. Crotchety, cantankerous, terse curmudgeon, non-conformist, and contrarian who questions everything!

The best thing about a vegetable garden is all the meat you can hunt and trap out of it!

 

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My current preferred method is to set up my Big Green Egg and a cast iron skillet preheated at 650 to 700 for at least an hour. Let the chicken sit at room temp for about 45 minutes. Oil it up. For a 3.5 lb chicken, put on backside for 15 minutes,breast side for 10, each leg side for 5 each. The dark meat is always done for me at that point, so I put on breast for about 5-10 minute until breast comes to temp. Amazingly juicy with crispy, almost fried skin.

I've done 2.5 lb chickens, and they finish in about 30 minutes total. I did a 4.5 chicken and the texture was like a shoe. It took too long for the inside to come to temp and the outside was leather-like. So somewhere around 3.5 lbs seems to be a limit.

I call it sautéing a chicken. It makes a lot of smoke and splatter, so it seems necessary to do outside.

I want to try a hybrid of this and the method suggested above as I understand it. Preheat a cast iron Dutch oven with lid at 650, and put the chicken in the Dutch oven and cover.

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Thanks everyone for your suggestions. At 1 hour the breast meat was close to 130 and the thighs were 150. I cooked it for another 30 to 35 minutes and probably could have left it a bit longer. I like the recipe because it is easy and doesn't involve a lot of messing about even though the chicken skin is flabby. However, the next time I roast a chicken and I plan on enjoying the skin I'll use the Marcella Hazan recipe recommended by Patrick Amory.

"A fool", he said, "would have swallowed it". Samuel Johnson

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They say 1 hour and 20 minutes to 1 hour and 50 minutes for a 4.5 to 5 pound chicken, so that's about right.

Roughly 20 to 25 minutes per pound.

FWIW, the recipe is available online....... http://www.wnyc.org/story/70603-americas-test-kitchens-french-chicken-in-a-pot/

~Martin :)

I just don't want to look back and think "I could have eaten that."

Unsupervised, rebellious, radical agrarian experimenter, minimalist penny-pincher, and adventurous cook. Crotchety, cantankerous, terse curmudgeon, non-conformist, and contrarian who questions everything!

The best thing about a vegetable garden is all the meat you can hunt and trap out of it!

 

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My chicken was only about 4 1/3 pounds. The recipe says that a 3 1/2 to 4 1/2-pound chicken will take about an hour to cook.
Every other time I cooked a chicken using this recipe, it usually weighed about 3 1/2 to 3 3/4. I get them at my butchers, and that is the biggest chicken he carries. So, I never had problems with the recipe before. However, the local market just starting carrying Empire Kosher "Broiler/Roaster" chickens. ( Do chicken designations really mean anything anymore? They used to.) I've been making the most of being able to get larger chickens, because eventually the market is going to decide there isn't enough call for them to continue carrying them.

"A fool", he said, "would have swallowed it". Samuel Johnson

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Like anything, it's done when it's done....the times in the recipe are just a rough estimate.

~Martin :)

I just don't want to look back and think "I could have eaten that."

Unsupervised, rebellious, radical agrarian experimenter, minimalist penny-pincher, and adventurous cook. Crotchety, cantankerous, terse curmudgeon, non-conformist, and contrarian who questions everything!

The best thing about a vegetable garden is all the meat you can hunt and trap out of it!

 

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Yeah, cross-contamination aside, it's a pretty good method.

~Martin :)

I just don't want to look back and think "I could have eaten that."

Unsupervised, rebellious, radical agrarian experimenter, minimalist penny-pincher, and adventurous cook. Crotchety, cantankerous, terse curmudgeon, non-conformist, and contrarian who questions everything!

The best thing about a vegetable garden is all the meat you can hunt and trap out of it!

 

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Simple yet effective:

Put butter between skin/flesh on breast and legs - cover in olive oil, squeeze half lemon over it then salt/pep/garlic salt/stuff carcass with other half of lemon and an onion - 1hr20-40mins @ 180c, baste every 20 mins. Its a sort of mixture of recipes but I make it religiously and never fails.

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Do you do it as written, or do you squeeze the lemon juice over before the oil? I love the sound of this recipe, but it strikes me that the lemon would have more impact under the oil, rather than over. (I'm a lemon lover, can you tell ?)

"Commit random acts of senseless kindness"

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In the video linked to above I was wondering what was meant by tempering a chicken. I found a source that said a 3 to 4 lb. chicken should be removed from the refrigerator and set in a cool place for about 45 minutes before cooking otherwise it may not be fully cooked in the center. I'll try doing that in the future but certainly won't leave it out until it reaches "room temperature". Doing that in So. Jersey in the summer would be asking for trouble. I should think 45 minutes to an hour at most would be enough. Persons wishing to pursue this matter can start by googling "Bouchon temper chicken" I will not tell any of the dumb jokes running through my head while googling, "how to temper a chicken" and hope others will show the same restraint

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"A fool", he said, "would have swallowed it". Samuel Johnson

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Do you do it as written, or do you squeeze the lemon juice over before the oil? I love the sound of this recipe, but it strikes me that the lemon would have more impact under the oil, rather than over. (I'm a lemon lover, can you tell ?)

I love lemon too - I squeeze it pre oil and rub the squeezed lemon over the flesh then pour olive oil then the dry ingredients obviously.

I find sometimes the lemon inside the chicken can make a bitter taste so I'm experimenting with taking the lemon rind/skin off before inserting into the carcass.

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Maybe I'm crazy, but I don't hold with the bitter pith idea. I always zested the lemon and orange for my mom's fruitcake right down to the pulp, as a kid who didn'nt know any better, and she never had a complaint from anyone! What IS bitter are the dividing membranes inside the fruit. Maybe they're what you're tasting?

"Commit random acts of senseless kindness"

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