Feedback Please Perfectly Wonderful Roast Chicken

[boar_d_laze]

“Perfect” roast chicken has the reputation of being one of those things which is so simple it’s difficult. It’s also known as something which if done simply and well is perfectly wonderful. Half right. Perfectly wonderful roast chicken requires good ingredients and a modicum of technique. Technique will carry ordinary chicken fairly far – but there are limits. A good chicken is “free range” (in the ordinary sense of the word, that is not cage raised), and freshly killed and dressed. The optimal period for freshness is 6 to 24 hours after processing. This represents a real shopping problem for some people. You can make an almost perfect and still wonderful roast chicken with a supermarket chicken, just not perfect.

Brining is not an absolutely essential part of making great roast chicken. It helps an awful lot though. If you do brine – and you should try it at least once – you’ll have to reduce the amount of salt in the “rub” by half.


PERFECTLY WONDERFUL ROAST CHICKEN

Ingredients, Brine:
6 cups water, divided
1 onion
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup table salt, or 1/2 cup Morton kosher salt, or 2/3 cup Diamond kosher salt
1/4 cup dry (white) Vermouth
1 lemon
18 ice cubes.

Ingredients, Rub (with brine):
1-1/2 tbs kosher salt
1-1/2 tbs smoked (preferably) or mild paprika
1-1/2 tbs fresh, coarsely ground black pepper
1-1/2 tbs herbes de Provence

Ingredients, Rub (without brine):
1/4 cup kosher salt
1-1/2 tbs smoked (preferably) or mild paprika
1-1/2 tbs fresh, coarsely ground black pepper
1-1/2 tbs herbes de Provence

Ingredients, Chicken:
1 3-1/2 to 4-1/2 lb fresh chicken
1 lemon
2 tbs butter, softened, divided
(Optional) 1 tsp truffle oil, or juice, or 1/2 tsp of truffle pieces
2 sprigs fresh rosemary, divided
2 sprigs fresh thyme or 1 tbs divided
Salt and pepper

Ingredients, Jus:
2 tbs cold butter, divided
1 cup mirepoix (1/2 cup onions, medium dice, 1/4 cup carrots, medium dice, and 1/4 cup celery, medium dice)
1 cup chicken stock



Technique:
Prepare the brine, as follows:
Peel and rough chop the onion. Put it in a pan with 6 cups water, the salt and the sugar. Heat over a high flame, until the water just boils. Meanwhile cut the lemon in quarters. Remove the pan from the flame. Stir the brine to make sure the salt and sugar have dissolved. Squeeze about half the juice from each quarter into the brine, then add the partially squeezed rinds to the hot brine the brine to steep. After 15 minutes, add the Vermouth, and the ice.

Brine the chicken, as follows:
Rinse the chicken inside and out. Place the chicken in a close fitting pot and pour the brine over it, so the chicken is completely covered. Cover the pot and refrigerate the chicken in the brine for between 2 and 24 hours. 6 to 12 hours is optimal.

Prepare the rub, as follows:
Mix all ingredients, reserve.

Prepare the chicken to roast, as follows:
Preheat the oven to 425F

Remove the chicken from the brine and dry it inside and out. The inside should be as dry as possible, the skin should be absolutely dry. Don’t settle for damp skin, it will not crisp properly.

Season the cavity with a pinch or two of the rub.

Loosen the skin on the breasts and thighs by massaging it back and forth, until you can slide your fingers inside the skin and onto the meat. Make sure the butter is very soft, and combine it with the truffle pieces, juice or oil. Slide half of the butter under the skin on each side of the breast, and distribute it as evenly as possible over the breast and onto the thigh if possible (may be a problem for big hands). While your hands are still buttery, rub them over the outside of the chicken. Sprinkle the chicken generously, all over, with rub. Make sure you get some in the space between the area between thigh and breast. You'll be eating it, so it might as well taste good.

Cut the lemon in half, and place it in the cavity, along with a sprig of rosemary and thyme.

Bend the wing tips back so the wings stay behind the bird. Truss the wings close to the bird, by tying a single band of twine around the wings and bird. Tie with a surgeon’s knot. (A surgeon’s knot is a regular “square knot with an extra wrap on the first hitch. The extra wrap will hold the twine while you make the second hitch. If this makes no sense, just forget it and tie it as best you can.) If you have a trussing needle, loosely sew the cavity shut. If not, forget it. Tie the legs together at the “ankles.” Truss the thighs to the body with another single band and surgeon’s knot. In short: Legs, thighs, wings – cavity optional. The purpose of trussing the bird is to protect the breast and so that it cooks evenly.

Place a rack in a baking pan, and set the chicken on the rack, with a leg/wing side up. Put 1 tbs of cold butter in the pan. Put the pan in the oven.

After 15 minutes, rotate the bird, so the other leg/wing side is up.

After another 15 minutes, rotate the bird again, so the back is up and the breast down. Add the mirepoix to the bottom of the pan, along with the remaining sprigs of rosemary and thyme.

After another 15 - 25 minutes (depending on the bird’s size – 15 minutes for a 3-1/2 lb bird; 20 minutes for a 4 pounder, and 25 minutes for the big kahuna), rotate the bird so that it’s breast side up. Reduce the heat to 350.

Cook for another 20 - 30 minutes. You may test for doneness with a thermometer (breast 155, thigh 165), or by piercing the thickest part of the thigh with a toothpick. Clear juices signal the bird is done, pink tinged require more cooking.

Set the bird to rest on your carving board and cover it tightly with aluminum foil. It must rest at least 10 minutes. Don’t worry about it cooling down. It tastes better warm than hot. It’s also a critical part of making juicy chicken.

Meanwhile bring the baking dish to the stove top, and set it on a low flame. Deglaze the pan with the chicken stock, bring to a boil and reduce by about 25%. Sieve the jus, pressing the mirepoix to force all the juices from it. Discard the mirepoix. Whisk the cold butter into the hot jus to enrich it. Reserve and hold warm.

Carve the bird as follows:
Separate a leg quarter from the body at the thigh. Separate the leg and the thigh. Reserve on the board. Run a sharp knife along the keel (breast) bone and remove the breast meat from the bone, until you reach the wing. Using the point of your knife, disjoint the wing from the carcass, while keeping it attached to the breast. Remove the entire breast and wing. Cut roughly in half. The part without the wing is called the supreme in French. If you share this wonderful knowledge, you will invariably be asked what the other piece is called. Say, Jean-Paul. Repeat the carving process for the other side of the chicken. The joke will not bear repetition.

Plate or arrange the chicken on a platter. Spoon a little jus over the chicken – enough to make the chicken shine and puddle slightly on the plate. Transfer the remaining jus to a sauce-boat so the guests may pass it among themselves.

Reserve and refrigerate the carcass for roast chicken stock.

PS This is the first draft of a recipe I intend to put in my book. It was inspired, as are so many of my ideas, by a discussion in Chef Talk. Any comments or feedback you care to give are welcome. If you like the recipe and instructions enough to want to share them, please attribute them to me, Boar D. Laze. I'd be grateful if you could also mention the working title of my book: COOK FOOD GOOD: American Cooking and Technique for Beginners and Intermediates.

Hope you enjoy it, and ... Thanks,
BDL

[boar_d_laze]

The above is the first draft of a recipe I intend to put in my book. It was inspired, as are so many of my ideas, by a discussion in Chef Talk. Any comments or feedback you care to give are welcome.

If you like the recipe and instructions enough to want to share them, please attribute them to me, Boar D. Laze. I'd be grateful if you could also mention the working title of my book: COOK FOOD GOOD: American Cooking and Technique for Beginners and Intermediates. Hope you enjoy it, and ...

Thanks,
BDL

[kuan]

I think the brine is too potent.

and...

You still rinse your chicken?

[boar_d_laze]

Originally Posted by kuan

I think the brine is too potent.

"Normal" brine is 1 cup table salt per gallon liquid. Assuming 18 ice cubes is more than 2 cups of water (and it is), this is a moderately weak brine, 2/3 cup table salt per gallon plus. My experience with chicken is that it benefits from roughly equal amounts of acid (at normal vinegar strength) and granulated sugar.

That said, how much table salt would you add to two quarts of water?

You still rinse your chicken?

Almost always. I know too much about large commercial operations not to rinse. In this case, considering the chicken's going into a brine, I don't foresee a lot of flavor loss.

Don't you?

BDL

[kuan]

For 1/2 gallon I'd do 1/2c table salt if I'm doing a slow brine, more salt for a quick brine.

Yeah I rinse my chicken too. We're old fashioned I guess.

[boar_d_laze]

Kuan,

Bro, I don't get it. I specified 1/3 cup table salt and you said:

For 1/2 gallon I'd do 1/2c table salt if I'm doing a slow brine, more salt for a quick brine.

My 1/3 is less than your 1/2 cup. I think you got confused by the 2/3c of Diamond kosher. The rule of thumb is 1 unit table = 1-1/2 Morton kosher = 2 Diamond kosher. What I forgot to do was specify "not iodized, if possible," because of the potential for discoloration.

Anyway, no matter whether I've got to do some adjusting or not, thanks for the feedback. It's good to have someone as competent as you watching my back, and it's exactly what I hoped for.

BDL

[shel]

Originally Posted by boar_d_laze

“Perfect” roast chicken has the reputation of being one of those things which is so simple it’s difficult. It’s also known as something which if done simply and well is perfectly wonderful. Half right. Perfectly wonderful roast chicken requires good ingredients and a modicum of technique. Technique will carry ordinary chicken fairly far – but there are limits. A good chicken is “free range” (in the ordinary sense of the word, that is not cage raised), and freshly killed and dressed. The optimal period for freshness is 6 to 24 hours after processing. This represents a real shopping problem for some people. You can make an almost perfect and still wonderful roast chicken with a supermarket chicken, just not perfect.

Free range chickens have access to an area outside of the cage, but don't necessarily go out, and, if they do, the area is usually pretty small and the birds don't get much exercise. I no longer buy such chickens, and have started buying pastured chickens which are kept outside, often in large, moveable pens, so that they can scratch for bugs and eat grass in addition to their regular feed, as chickens were meant to do.

We are starting to see more air chilled birds in the markets these days, much more than a year ago. Look for air chilled birds as a better tasting, better quality, and healthier/safer alternative to birds that have been processed in water.

For roasting, I like the larger birds for their greater flavor, and Petaluma Poultry, makers of Rocky, Rockie Jr., and Rosie organic birds, are now producing what they call a "heritage" chicken, one that's a little bigger, older, and, supposedly, more flavorful, than their regular birds. There are, of course, lots of other choices for quality birds.

As you've suggested, supermarket birds packed in plastic trays really don't make a great tasting roast chicken. They are, for the most part, lacking in flavor, sold with as much as 8% added water, and have often been frozen and defrosted by the time they're purchased.

scb

[teamfat]

Nitpicking editor stuff, in the carving section:

while keeping it attached from the breast

'From' is probably not the word you want there. I usually carve in the fricassee style with the wing attached TO the breast when we have guests, that is something they don't see at KFC. When it is just my wife and I, we eat the legs, thighs and wings, keep the breasts intact for sandwiches and salads Well, not all the time, a freshly roasted chicken breast that hasn't been overcooked and dried out is quite tasty.

I imagine you'll have a section on basic principles and techniques and can tout the virtues of brining poultry in greater depth. It seems like you underplay it in this particular recipe, but as you say it isn't essential for a roast bird.

As mentioned a time or two, I'm a big fan of citrus stuck inside poultry, glad to see it here. I usually toss in a clove or two of garlic as well. Speaking of which, if part of your intended audience is those just starting out down the path of making good food, you may want to mention somwehere the difference between a head and a clove of garlic. Not that putting two HEADS of garlic in a chicken would ruin it for me, mind you!

mjb.

[tessa]

we never brine our chicken at all over here why do you all brine your chicken??

[kuan]

Originally Posted by boar_d_laze

Kuan,

Bro, I don't get it. I specified 1/3 cup table salt and you said: My 1/3 is less than your 1/2 cup.

No you're right. Gallon is 16 cups. Maybe I gotta go back to school to learn arithmetic.

[siduri]

Hi Bdl,
You asked for feedback and i'll give you the feedback from my point of view as a home cook. I do pretty difficult things, i cook a lot of stuff, i have several dozen cookbooks and i love to read them. I guess i'm an intermediate cook, since i don;t have any professional training, though after some 35 to 40 years cooking i have good skills, chop and peel and do everything quick enough for a professional kitchen (come home from work and want to give your family a really good meal and start chopping - that sort of thing). Anyway, take my comments with a (dare i say it) grain of salt.

I find your recipe too long. I don;t know right now how i would shorten it, but i have the feeling that most people would be put off by all the detail, and would (wrongly) think its way too hard for their "beginner's" cooking skills.

On brining - i guess in the States everyone has plenty of room to brine - i would be hard put to keep an american-sized chicken in my fridge just in the wrapper, much less in a pot of brine. I don;t know if this is crap technique, but i found with turkey (that tends to get dry) that injecting a salt solution under the skin into the flesh does what they say brining does. You can tell me if this is correct. I could try to flavor it, but i do the chopped herbs and butter under the skin technique so it's pretty well-flavored (i find rosemary too strong and makes everything taste the same - perhaps some strong reaction to italian cooking that seems to rely exclusively on rosemary for meat and potatoes and all the meat tastes the same to me) and prefer marjoram and garlic butter under the skin, but that';s just a question of taste.

I think you might try to write a shortened version of the recipe first, then elaborate later.
e.g.
1.Brine the chicken in bla bla bla
2. dry THOROUGHLY
3. rub with.....
4 stuff under skin with...
etc.

then you could follow it with a more detailed description. I find i need to have a sense of the recipe first, quickly, so i know what i'm getting in for, then later if i don;t understand somethingm, i want the details. You could say "recipe outline" or "recipe for experienced cooks" and then follow with "recipe for beginners" or "notes to recipe" or something, and cover the point numbered in the same way. As i say, just my personal opinion. Oh, and i find the picky details like about the supermarket chicken not being perfect, and all, to be a little off-putting. Most people work and run home stopping on the way for some food, or whatever, shop once a week in a busy schedule, and it makes it seem you can;t put out good and even wonderful food that way. Makes you think you might as well not try. Maybe it could be expressed differently, like "you will probably use a supermarket chicken, but maybe once you could try a free range... etc, for a truly superb roast chicken, etc"

Let us all know when your cookbook comes out.
siduri

[shel]

Originally Posted by siduri

I find your recipe too long. I don;t know right now how i would shorten it, but i have the feeling that most people would be put off by all the detail, and would (wrongly) think its way too hard for their "beginner's" cooking skills.

Just another POV .... I don't find the recipe to be too long or detailed. I actually like recipes that are very detailed (I think BDL's could be even more detailed) and on the longish side. The more information the better, not only about the recipe, but about the ingredients, such as where to get them, variations, and the like). I ike to read recipes that are something like short stories. Paula Wolfert, Judy Rodgers write recipes like that, and really get me involved.

shel

[phatch]

Why do you use more salt in the rub with the brine than the rub without the brine? Or are they reversed?

And that's a lot of rub for just using a pinch or two in the cavity. At least I didn't notice it being used anywhere else.

PHil

[boar_d_laze]

Phil and Team,

Thanks for catching the oversights/typos. Corrections made. I really should have proofread it better before posting -- even as a first draft.

Siduri

I see what you mean. I've been wrestling with how to tie techniques that require a lot of explanation to specific recipes. You're right. This is way too much in one place. "Brining," and adjusting the rub for brining need their own part. So to do carving and trussing.

BDL

[RPMcMurphy]

Soon as i get back to eating solid foods again (currently detoxing)....I'll of course give it a try BDL....as soon as I give your Caesar salad recipe a try! (we actually just got a nice wood salad bowl)

I have to say the last casserole roasted chicken I did from Julia Childs was. a. maz. ing.....i thought i nailed it. even though I didn't brine, can't imagine what its going to taste like...