Whole chickens were on sale so I bought one. Usually I would just stuff and roast the darn thing but don’t want to foreshadow Thanksgiving with its roast turkey.
I don’t want to have to cut it up (too oogy). Any suggestions?
Got a dutch oven? Put the chicken in there and slather it with your favorite sauce. I love to cover it in rooster sauce. Then crank up the oven at a high temperature for 30 minutes, which will make it cook faster. My BF and I have done this many times and good chicken comes out every time. I was a bit squeamish about the high temperature at first (for our oven we do 500 degrees) but we’ve never burnt a whole chicken once. Keep an eye on it if you’re afraid of burning it.
Freeze it and eat it sometime when it’s not a week before T’giving.
Try a “poule au pot” (chicken in pot). It makes an apperance in our household when whole chickens are cheap. I use a Jaques Pepin recipe from a book, but look around online and you’ll find several recipes, I’m sure.
It is basically a stuffed chicken simmered like a stew with vegetables, leeks, and seasoning. Then you eat the chicken and veggies separately from the “soup”. Here is a recipe online. Though I use a sausage and beef stuffing rather than a bread stuffing. There are infinate variations though.
That Poule au Pot sounds great – think we’ll be having it on Wednesday . . .
Thanks all!
I cut an onion in half, put both halves in, then some potatoes and carrots in the bottom of my crock pot, the chicken on top of that, and then some wine. After about 3-4 hours on high, broil it for a bit to brown it up nicely.
Tasty.
Beer butt chicken!!
Rub it down with a good BBQ rub, inside the skin too, then open a beer can, pop some extra holes in the top and place the chicken butt over the can on a grill for an hour or so.
You must fight your fear of ooginess. Cut up that chicken and fry it!
Alton Brown’s Broiled, Butterflied Chicken.
Pretty easy to prep, and it tastes amazing.
Whatever you do with it, remember to save the bones to make stock with: here’s Jamie Oliver’s for instance.
Brunswick Stew(since you said it’s a roaster?).
But, I also endorse the “put it in freezer and wait until the turkey is long gone.”
seconded for truth.
Making stock is fun, and your entire house smells delicious throughout. Plus you can make good-tasting stock that is far lower in sodium than the canned stuff.
This recipe turned out really good when I made it, and I’d never made a whole chicken before.
Roast it, shred the meat, and make chicken and noodles or chicken pot pie.
Cutting up a chicken is really too oogy for you? When I was a kid, we used to get freshly killed chickens intact, except for the feathers. Head, feet, everything. I loved to be the one to clean out the inside, which was still warm.
I said this to someone else the other day, but it’s much more applicable here:
Thanks. I was getting really bored with all my old nightmares.
Make the original 1953 recipe for Coronation Chicken.
I remember having that a few times back in the 60s, a sweet curried chicken salad. I would say that it would be good served by hollowing out tomatoes and packing it in, or even a bread bowl where you could demolish the bread at the same time. Maybe filling cooked and chilled portobello caps, or even spread open heads of butter lettuce.
This is my default whole chicken recipe:
1 whole roaster
4-6 medium white potatoes, peeled and sliced 1/2 inch thick
1 medium onion (white or yellow), peeled and quartered
2 carrots, peeled and cut into long narrow strips
1 or 2 ribs of celery, broken into 4 pieces
Poultry seasoning
Extra rosemary
Spray large roasting pan with PAM or other non-stick spray. Lay potato slices in an even layer in the bottom of pan. Remove giblets & neck from chicken cavity, set aside. Wash chicken inside and out. Remove excess fat deposits and pinfeathers. Put chicken on top of potatoes. Loosen breast skin and place excess chicken fat between breast meat and skin. The breast meat tends to be dry and flavorless, and this helps prevent that. Put three of the onion quarters inside main body cavity. Put other onion quarter in neck cavity. Season chicken well with poultry seasoning (and extra rosemary, if desired). Arrange carrot and celery pieces around chicken. Add about 1 cup of water or chicken broth. Cover. Roast at 375 F until done. I don’t know how long it takes, but I generally allow a couple of hours for this dish. I just check the meat thermometer and take the chicken out when the thermometer reads “Poultry”.
Wash neck and giblets. Put neck and giblets, except for liver, in a small saucepan with water to cover. Simmer until done. Some people add seasoning and perhaps a chopped onion, but I don’t. Use as chicken broth.
Fry chicken liver in butter. Serve to husband, who thinks it’s a treat. Watch in amusement as he fights the cat (who also thinks it’s a treat) for it.
This roast chicken dish makes flavorful, tender, moist chicken, without added fat. The potatoes are simply lovely, they soak up the chicken flavor. The carrots and celery add a lot of flavor, and we always fight over the carrots. Don’t put more than three carrots in this dish, though, or it will be much too sweet. This is very nearly a complete meal as is. Side dishes can include a tossed green salad with oil and vinegar dressing, rolls/biscuits/cornbread, and possibly fresh fruit for dessert.
I do not season my dishes with salt and pepper as I cannot eat pepper, and my husband and daughter dislike salty foods. However, this dish would probably be improved by adding a bit of salt and pepper. The potatoes, at least, need some salt at the table.
Save the extra skin and bones to make into stock. Next day, make chicken’n’dumplings. If there’s enough chicken left, that is.
I’m with wolfman: beer can chicken, on the BBQ. There are several recipes available on line, and the taste is wonderful. (You can use applejuice, for instance, if you don’t want the beer flavor.)