Roasting a Chicken

[jaybee]

What makes you think that Wilfrid would know what a moile is?  (That's how you spell it?)

Actually, mohel is the correct spelling. Anyone who is expert at peeling testicles probably knows what a mohel is.

[Sandra Levine]

I'm sorry to have to come in after the mohel, but to bring the subject back to roast chicken, I have had great success recently with brining, rubbing well with oil,  starting the chicken on top of the stove in a hot cast-iron pan, 5 minutes on each side, and  then transfering the chicken in the same pan to the oven to roast.  

I also like the lemon in the cavity method.  I never baste, just rub the skin with oil or butter initially, and I always have wonderfully crisp skin.

[Wilfrid]

I have just reviewed the following paragraph, and would suggest you don't read on if you're squeamish...By all means, get back to the chicken.

*****

Anyway, sorry to have created a diversion.  I think I know what a moil is, but it's not for peeling testicles.  They come encased in a very thick, tough membrane.  Dunking them in hot water loosens this up, and you can then remove it by making an incision with a sharp knife and popping the testicle out.  The bison testicles sold at Union Square Green Market come with the membrane already removed for your convenience.

[Andy Lynes]

Just think, someones CV reads "peeled bison testicles for the Union Square Green Market". I'd love to be a fly on the wall at their next job interview:

"Well, I'd always wanted to work with animals......."

[Wimpy]

[Fantastic straightforward no-muss no-fuss and great planned-overs from Marcella Hazan's lemon-in-the-cavity breast-side-down-to-begin no-basty method.  From her first book, I think?  Fancier, and with the toothsome crispy skin to show for it, are the various butter-enriched versions, such as have been introduced here]

Allow me to add my vote to Hazan's method.  I can typically stuff up to two whole lemons in my chickens!  After roasting though, I deglaze the pan using lemons from inside the chicken (careful to catch the seeds else will impart bitter taste) and add salt and pepper to taste.  Also sometimes add butter to emulsify sauce slightly.  Makes for nice gravy.

[Liza]

We've just sampled our first Smart Chicken, and it will now be the house bird. Here's some information from the David Rosengarten Report:

Jason Rowe

MBA Poultry

333 South Third Street

PO Box 257

Tecumseh NE 68450

402-335-2501

"Your chicken woes are over! It has been the American foodie's amntra for a

long time now: our chickens don't take like their chickens.  That's what

Mark Haskins thought a few  years back, especially after a trip to Europe

during which he tasted chickens with real flavor and real texture...The

Europeans...air chill the bird down to 40 degrees. It's more costly. But he

was convinced it's the key difference. So he began producing chickens in

Nebraska - including lots of other nice touches, such as no antibiotics,

vegetarian feeding, no freezing, etc. - and today Smart Chicken is the only

chicken produced on a commercial scale in the US that air-chills  it's

birds. ...This is the best American chicken I have tasted, bar none. It wins

on texture alone - nothing mushy or flaccid about it, but a real, meaty,

resilient chew, like Frances' famous Poulet de Bresse...then there's the

taste. After you sample these birds, you won't go around saying that other

things "taste like chicken". Alligator meat may taste like a commercial

chicken, but it tastes nothing like this deep-flavored, sweet,

poultry-intense bird."

[cabrales]

We've just sampled our first Smart Chicken, and it will now be the house bird. . . .Tecumseh NE

Liza -- How are the Smart Chicken forwarded to you (e.g., by airmail, purchased from a local representative)?

[Priscilla]

Allow me to add my vote to Hazan's method.  I can typically stuff up to two whole lemons in my chickens!  After roasting though, I deglaze the pan using lemons from inside the chicken (careful to catch the seeds else will impart bitter taste) and add salt and pepper to taste.  Also sometimes add butter to emulsify sauce slightly.  Makes for nice gravy.

Yes, if I WANTED, I could fit a whole lemon or three inside most chickens I have known.  Although some lemons are too big.  As in the rest of life, sometimes it's the lemon and sometimes it's the chicken.  

The deglazing with the lemons is a good idea.  In cutting the lemon in pieces I do lose out on that distinctive cooked-lemon-juice flavor that develops, which I can see benefitting a lot from butter enrichment.

I also have at times used LIMES, subject of a lovefest over on the India board, and it's a whole different head but good in its own way, too.

Priscilla

[Liza]

Cabrales, I think the Smart Chickens are overnight mailed to us. And honestly, it was terrific. If it is true that you will be attending the first NYC Egullet pot-luck, I will endeavor to produce a Smart Chicken for you.

[Priscilla]

I take whatever I'm stuffing the bird with and rub it all over the skin, as it is already all over my hands at the time[...]

Yes.  You know how M.F.K. Fisher said when she has cooking fat on her hands, olive oil, butter, whatever, she rubbed it in, for the good of her skin?  Course one does have to wash one's hands and get on with other tasks at some point, but I always liked that she said that.

And Priscilla, I heartily encourage the bunging of the lemon.

Yes.  Far too little lemon-bunging, In Today's World.

Priscilla, who edited in an of

[lullyloo]

Well, lullyloo has roasted her first chicken using a combination of methods proffered by all you fine e-gulleteers.  Started with a six and a half pound roaster and brined in salt and a smidge of sugar for seven hours.  Then I mashed up some butter, fresh thyme, garlic clove, salt and paprika with a mortar and pestle and slathered it under the skin, in the cavity, and on top.  Stuffed the cavity with the neck, gizzards, etc., two whole lemons, a handful of garlic cloves and more thyme.  Then basted the skin with olive oil and paprika.  I roasted that baby according to times and temp (400) in Joy of Cooking, breast side down for an hour then flipped to finish for what I thought would be another twenty or so minutes.  I don't know where Joy of Cooking got their times from because it really took more like two hours total.  I was kind of worried that despite the brining the breast would be dried out since it had been in the oven for so long, but miraculously, it wasn't.  It was definitely done and a couple of slices had that near-crumbly texture overdone poultry gets, yet they were still moist! (hoorah brining!)  The skin was marvelously crispy skin heaven (hoorah butter!), and now I have enough chicken to last me all week and then some.  It was a big bird!  I deglazed the pan juices (which were abundant - hoorah gizzards!) with the juice of the two lemons and poured it over some penne.  A little on the rich side as I didn't have the patience at this point to get rid of enough of the fat.   Very happy with the experience and can't wait to try variations.  The thyme wasn't too strong, but not sure if it's my herb of choice.  Thanks to everyone for all your marvelous suggestions.  And now I have a nice carcass to make some stock.

[AdamLawrence]

What chicken do members utilize for roasted chicken (e.g., supplier, farm-raised)?  Is it true that Bresse chicken are not available in the US?  :confused:

I've worked my way through most of the upmarket chicken brands available in UK supermarkets. There's an organic chicken brand available in Sainsbury's called PJ Onions (crazy name, crazy bird?) which is very good. They are typically quite large - I wouldn't want to tangle with a live one    - have good flavour and make excellent, very gelatinous stock.

Many of the other chicken brands are English-raised but attempt to mimic French products in packaging/naming etc. There is a brand I get from my butcher in Oxford called 'Label Anglais'; these are OK, but I don't think I'd go out of my way to find one. The best I have found up to press (taking the title from the PJ Onions brand) is a chicken available in Waitrose called 'Label Rouge'. These are corn-fed and I think organic. They are typically very large indeed, killed at 81 days IIRC. I roasted one at the weekend; it was about 2.4kg, but another on the shelf weighed in at 3.4kg, the largest supermarket chicken I can recall seeing. Bigger birds I find tend to have a stronger flavour. Anyway, the bird I cooked (upside down, breast rubbed with Maldon salt and my best olive oil, half a lemon up its backside) was superb; probably the best chicken I've had in ages. Recommend them.

Adam

[John Whiting]

A belated entry. I take the key to this enquiry to be the desire for meat available through the week -- in other words, not just a beautiful object to put on the Sunday dinner table. The reason that there is so much argument about how to roast a chicken is that the dark meat and the light meat cook at different speeds. My suggestion is to quarter the bird such that the light and dark meat are on different segments. Roast them with whatever oils and flavorings you favor in separate trays, foil-covered, on different shelves of a slow oven, with the dark meat on the top shelf -- the slower the better, if you want meat which will still be moist by the end of the week. The top shelf will probably be nearly done before the lower one; if so, reverse the trays. The skin will not be crisp, but after a day it won't be crisp however you cook it.

Even a tough old boiling fowl will respond to this treatment. Lower the temperature still furher and roast it all day. Remember -- the tougher the meat, the stronger the flavor. (Speaking as a tough old bird.    )

[Wilfrid]

Wise suggestion, John.  I sometimes simply joint the bird up, get the legs and wings cooking slow in a baking tray, and just add the breast meat to the same tray much later in the process.  I often find myself doing the same sort of thing with various meats, not just poultry, as my partner likes her meat much more thoroughly cooked than I do.

[jaybee]

I mentioned my preference for goose fat as the stuff to slather over the chicken before roasting.  I also found chicken fat to work well too.  Not that there's anything wrong with butter or oil, just that goose fat really makes it taste good.  I'm curious to know why no one commented on this idea.  Has it been tried and found wanting?

[John Whiting]

I simply took it as a truism, like the preeminence of Petrus. Goose fat makes *everything* taste good!  

[cabrales]

Cabrales, I think the Smart Chickens are overnight mailed to us. And honestly, it was terrific. If it is true that you will be attending the first NYC Egullet pot-luck, I will endeavor to produce a Smart Chicken for you.

Liza -- I will be attending the potluck and the chicken sounds great. However, there's no need to adhere to the chicken if something else would otherwise be more interesting for you to prepare or for other members to sample.  

[SobaAddict70]

A latecomer to this thread:

For rub options, I prefer a mix of butter/olive oil, and salt/pepper/paprika or just olive oil/lemon juice/rosemary/salt/pepper.  Usually olive oil/salt/pepper and assorted herbs.  Sometimes I'll slip cubes of butter or goose fat underneath the skin, for that extra OOMPH.

I'll try the lemon wedges/onion mix for stuffing.  Sounds fantastic.

40 unpeeled cloves of garlic and a few sprigs of rosemary or lemon thyme are how I usually go for stuffing.  Sometimes I'll make any of the following for stuffing:  cornbread (from scratch)/sausage/apple; (sweet) Italian sausage/roasted peppers and onions/rice; cranberry or other dried fruit/wild rice/roasted onions/chopped leftover cold chicken; aromatic root veggies/sourdough bread crumbs...

Basting options include a mix of butter/honey/lemon juice, Vidalia onion marmalade/honey/white wine vinegar; olive oil and citrus juice; mushroom soy/hoisin/rice wine/peanut oil/minced garlic, ginger and scallions (note from Soba:  go easy on the soy and hoisin)...

time for some lunch

[cabrales]

Apologies for what is probably a question highlighting my lack of cooking capabilities (from a member who is also considering roasting a chicken for the first time later this year). It is the case that no vegetables or seasonings (incl. spices) should be placed *next to* the chicken in the roasting pan itself?  Also, as fat and juices dribble out of the chicken being roasted, could spices/vegetables/other items placed next to the chicken enhance the fat/juices, which could then add flavor to the part of the chicken touching the roasting pan?  I wonder if stuffing is necessarily the appropriate way to include accompanying vegetables -- to preserve their moisture.

Finally, do members have input on what interesting oil/fat could be used to grease the roasting pan prior to placing the chicken inside?

[tommy]

Apologies for what is probably a question highlighting my lack of cooking capabilities (from a member who is also considering roasting a chicken for the first time later this year). It is the case that no vegetables or seasonings (incl. spices) should be placed *next to* the chicken in the roasting pan itself?  Also, as fat and juices dribble out of the chicken being roasted, could spices/vegetables/other items placed next to the chicken enhance the fat/juices, which could then add flavor to the part of the chicken touching the roasting pan?  I wonder if stuffing is necessarily the appropriate way to include accompanying vegetables -- to preserve their moisture.

Finally, do members have input on what interesting oil/fat could be used to grease the roasting pan prior to placing the chicken inside?

by all means surround the bird with carrots, onions, celery, and a head of garlic!  

when the bird is done, place the pan on the range, adding white or red wine and chicken broth to deglaze.  add a couple of sprigs of thyme and reduce.  strain all of that stuff out and you'll have a quick and easy au jus.

[Miss J]

Apologies for what is probably a question highlighting my lack of cooking capabilities (from a member who is also considering roasting a chicken for the first time later this year).

Later this year? Man - cabrales, you really plan ahead!  

Putting a few carrots (in particular) around your bird makes the juices taste fabulous, btw. The first time I did it I was just trying to get rid of a few carrots that were on their way to petrifying on the bottom of my fridge, but I was knocked sideways at the difference it made to the jus.

My bird is typically - organic, brushed with goosefat, stuffed with half a lemon and popped in the pan with carrots, whole (unpeeled) shallots, the giblets and a wee bit more goose fat. The whole thing is sprinkled with a little seasalt. The pan is later deglazed with wine and/or a bit of chicken stock.

Left to my own devices, I usually serve it with mash. But my partner thinks that all roasted meats should come with roasted potatoes, so ever since I got a double oven I've been able to indulge him.  

Miss J

[mikeczyz]

what to readers think of judy rodgers of zuni cafe fame of using a small 3 1/2 pound chicken and roasting it at 475-500 degrees? she claims that you can crank the heat up really high so that the skin crisps, but because you're using a smaller bird, the meat is cooked as well. i'm gonna try it on monday. as for brining, is there a consensus on whether it's worth it? i plan to liberally salt and pepper my bird, stuff with half a lemon, and rub thyme butter under teh skin and on the outside as well. does that sound acceptable?

mike

[KatieLoeb]

I like to use the "over-the-can" method for roasting chickens. I use either a large soup can or a coffee can (whichever fits the bird's inner cavity) and fill it about halfway with well seasoned (bay leaves, peppercorns, a few veggies, etc.) stock. I then place the cavity of the bird over the can and stand it all up in a roasting pan. Obviously, the rack has to be in a low position in the oven. I sear the bird at about 425 degrees for 15 minutes and then lower the oven temp until the thermometer in the thigh tells me it's done. I baste a couple of times with seasoned butter while baking. The bird comes out incredibly moist this way because the stock steams it from the inside out, while the dry oven heat crisps and roasts it from the outside in. Sort of an odd variant on Peking Duck preparation, but it works like a charm.

[Suzanne F]

Katie -- now I understand why "beer-can chicken" doesn't quite work: the opening from the pop-top isn't big enough to let much moisture out. Your method sounds good. Do you then use whatever stock that's left for the pan sauce?

[KatieLoeb]

Katie -- now I understand why "beer-can chicken" doesn't quite work: the opening from the pop-top isn't big enough to let much moisture out.  Your method sounds good.  Do you then use whatever stock that's left for the pan sauce?

Suzanne:

Yes - only I usually strain and degrease it first. If I toss the stock into the freezer while the chicken is "resting", I can usually scoop off enough of the "schmaltz" to make it palatable again. This method really does work pretty well. I never understood beer-can chicken, but your explanation makes sense, logically. The large can opening on the soup or coffee can definitely exposes enough surface area to actually allow appropriate evaporation.