I admit, I kind of want to do a taste test with two birds, one with aromatics and one without. I imagine it helps the flavor (it certainly affects the aroma in the house), but it’s not like I can be sure I’m identifying the taste when I eat it. I like the idea of both garlic and marjoram. Marjoram, IMHO, has a nice almost citrus-y flavor that I can see complimenting poultry very well.
One addendum to the recipes that both LHOD and Athena suggested; I turned the head down to 375 after about a half an hour. The skin was looking pretty good, and I was afraid of burning it (electric oven, and the top of the bird was maybe 6in from the element).
Not just the cooking method, I think part of why your bird was so tasty was that she came from a farm share. I find “real” chickens that had a chance to wander outdoors and do chickeny things and eat bugs and stuff really do taste different. Much more flavorful.
Drain, throw some halved onions, garlic cloves and pepper corns in the cavity and seal. Dust the surface with salt and pepper. Get a ceramic or pyrex pot with a steel rack at the bottom or make a mat from bamboo skewers, put a 1/2 inch layer of coarse salt at the bottom, put the chicken belly-down, cover with a lid, and put in a 350F over for one hour.
It will look raw, with pale colored skin but is cooked to the bone. Tender and tasty.
I usually quarter an onion, a carrot, and a rib of celery, and put the chunks into both ends of the bird. Really, you can get away with just an onion, but the carrot and celery are nice additions. I pull the fat from the vent, chop it coarsely, loosen the skin on the breast, and put the fat between the skin and the breast. Then I season the chicken with poultry seasoning, or with at least some sage and rosemary and thyme. I don’t truss it or sew it, I just push things together somewhat and call it good. Then I bake it at 395 until my husband whines that he’s going to starve to death. For the first night, I drain the pan juices into a fat separator, and we have the non fatty liquid. I make gravy of the fat and juices for the second night, when I might make a pot pie or stew.
Sometimes I peel and slice potatoes, and put them in the bottom of the roasting pan. This results in the potatoes soaking up the drippings and becoming transformed into the food of the gods.
My husband doesn’t care for many chicken dishes, but he will ask for this one. I think that it’s because the onion really flavors the meat.
Roast chicken if you oven has the rotisserie attachement - except we brush liquid honey over the skin periodiocally while cooking.
Another way - take a strong pair of scissors and cut it up (about 6 pieces), then toss it into a large saucepan with some curry mix (should be able to get premix curry stuff at the supermarket) - then start experimenting with adding additional flavours to your taste.
One of the best curries I ever had was three day old roast lamb, made into a curry with raisins and apples…
About that Ruhlman recipe… What’s the part about ventilation all about? I wouldn’t question it if you didn’t cook it for exactly the same amount of time regardless of whether you had it or not. I thought it was about smoke, but that can’t be right, because then the cooking time would vary pretty seriously between the two temperatures, wouldn’t it?
I actually do think it’s about the smoke; the chicken fat drips down and you might get some smoke if you’re on a seriously high temperature, and some people (Mr. Athena, I’m looking at YOU) are sensitive about such things.
And no, it doesn’t really change the amount of time it takes to cook the chicken. He also says “a 3-4 pound chicken.” Roasting a chicken isn’t an exact science; you might get a slightly better roasted chicken if you perfect the amount of time and/or size and took the time to do some experimentation. To be honest, I tend to roast a little longer at a little cooler temperature; that works better with my oven. But the recipe as it stands will produce a pretty damn good chicken in most ovens. Maybe it won’t be PERFECT all the time, but it’ll be very tasty.
I do two extra things when I roast a chicken, I don’t know how big a difference they make, but they work for me so I’m sticking with them:
[ol]
[li]Well ahead of time (in the morning, if you’re cooking in the evening), rinse and pat dry the chicken (make sure you get the cavity), put it on a rack over a paper-towel-lined pan, and put it in the refrigerator (if you have room; if not, skip this whole step). The refrigerator air will dry the chicken nicely.[/li][li]Take the chicken out of the fridge 20 minutes or so before roasting and let it come up to temperature a bit.[/li][/ol]
I get a super-crispy, nicely salty skin on my chickens doing this.
If you’re trussing the bird, I use Alton Brown’s scheme. Makes a nice, compact bird that cooks very evenly.
If you do happen to have a significant (several tablespoons worth) of chicken grease left over, try boiling some potatoes, tossing them in the grease, salting them, and then roasting them in the oven on about 425-450 until golden brown.
You guys and your healthy eating! Drop that sucker into a pot of water and boil the hell out of it. When it’s done, pull the meat apart by hand and put it in to a big skillet with some cut up onion and real cream and simmer it down. With the pot of chicken broth get some flour and baking soda and mix some dumplings. Drop those into boiling chicken broth. Yum yum yum.
Oh, yeah. The high heat method can produce a shit ton of smoke from dripping fat. It always set off the fire alarm at my wife’s (girlfriend-at-the-time) condo. One solution is to put a pan of water below the bird (so the chicken has to be on a grate), so the fat drips into the water and doesn’t burn off. It kind of goes against Keller’s philosophy of an absolutely dry bird in a dry heat (he doesn’t even stuff his chicken for this reason, while Ruhlman does), but I actually haven’t noticed much, if any, of a detrimental effect of putting a baking dish or cast iron pan with water underneath to catch the drippings. The bird still comes out crispy and juicy.
Yes! Chicken fat is amazing. We often roast some potatoes at the same time as the chicken, and when the chicken comes out, I’ll use a turkey baster to squirt some of the chicken fat over the roasting potatoes for extra deliciousness. I’ve done the same thing to other vegetables (e.g., asparagus) to excellent effect.
Also yes! I thought chicken noodle soup was mediocre, until I tried making it this way, and it blew my socks off. Homemade chicken noodle soup is fairly easy, if you make the stock the night before from the carcass, and it’s ambrosia, some of the best food you’ll ever eat.
[quote=“carlb, post:28, topic:671905”]
[li]Well ahead of time (in the morning, if you’re cooking in the evening), rinse and pat dry the chicken (make sure you get the cavity), put it on a rack over a paper-towel-lined pan, and put it in the refrigerator (if you have room; if not, skip this whole step). The refrigerator air will dry the chicken nicely.[/li][/quote]
I like the air dry effect, but new recommendations are that you don’t rinse a chicken.
I roasted a chicken for the first time recently and it turned out pretty great, but holy crap did it make a mess inside the oven. That was something I hadn’t anticipated, and it makes me reluctant to try it again anytime soon.
