How to get crispy skin on roasted chicken? - Page 2

My grandmother had a way of roasting chicken and turkey which I use and love - sometimes I get crispy skin, but I always get crispy bacon.

Slice a lemon thinly and put between the chicken skin and meat.  Salt, Cayenne pepper, thyme, oregano. sage, cumin get sprinkled all over the chicken after you rub it down with butter - lots of butter.  Stuff the chicken with creole stuffing, complete with oysters, shrimp, ground beef, etc.

Once the chicken is well rubbed and seasoned generously with all of the above, put breast up and cover it with strips of organic bacon.  Put the chicken in the oven and let it cook until the bacon is crisp.  Eat the bacon and then enjoy a great roasted chicken.  The skin will crisp if you don't overcook the bacon.  The bacon has to be removed before it attaches to the skin and is perfectly cooked.

Quote:

Originally Posted by gerdosh 

The idea is good, however, to roast the chicken in 450 oven for an hour in a home kitchen can be disastrous unless you have a very  powerful exhaust system and not many kitchens do. Smoke alarms go off and fabrics throughout the house smell like burnt fat for a week!

If you make sure your oven is clean, you won't have any issues with roasting a chicken in a 450 degree oven.  One exception is if you butter the skin.  The butter will burn at this high temperature and create some smoke.  However, on a chicken, I do not recommend buttering the skin.  This creates steam, and steam is the enemy of crispy skin.  I follow Thomas Keller's recipe, almost to the letter.  In addition to his recipe, I do the following:

1. If you have the time, take the chicken out of all packaging, put it on a plate in the refrigerator (make sure it's not touching anything else to avoid cross-contamination), and leave it there for twelve hours.  This a lot of the moisture in the skin to evaporate, and it dries out.  Don't be alarmed if it doesn't look terribly fresh after this step.  I assure you, the meat will be perfectly succulent, and the skin will crisp amazingly.

2.  About 30-45 minutes before I'm ready to roast the chicken (while the oven is pre-heating and I am preparing the aromatics and herbs), I take the chicken out of the fridge and let it stand at room temperature until I'm ready to put it in the oven.  During this 30-45 minutes, I periodically blot the skin of the entire bird with paper towel to remove any remaining moisture.

3.  Just before roasting, give the skin of the entire bird a nice rubdown with some extra virgin olive oil.  Keller's recipe recommends canola oil for its neutral flavor, but I personally like the flavor that extra virgin olive oil adds to the chicken.  Chicken by itself is pretty bland, so it's all about scenting and flavoring with simple aromatics (onions, garlic, lemon) in the cavity, herbs (thyme, rosemary, sage) on the skin and in the cavity, oil on the skin (extra virgin olive oil), and most important, kosher salt and pepper (both inside the cavity and a generous sprinkling on the skin).

My advice is this:  keep it very simple, roast it in a hot oven, remove as much moisture from the skin as possible before roasting, and season it well.  

Once you get the hang of it, the recipe for a simple roast chicken is a fool-proof, stand-by recipe that you can prepare on a moment's notice.  Delicious and special enough for a weekend dinner, but simple enough to make on a weeknight.  

Dry the skin with a towel or paper towel.  Smear softened butter all over.  If the skins not already reasonably dry, the butters not going to spread and will just form blobs.  Salt and Pepper and store the bird in the fridge for 4 - 12 hours.  If its a whole chicken, rub the cavity with salt.  Roast at whatever you want.  Its foolproof.  Salting first will give you a bit of cure to really pull the water out of that skin and give you exactly what you want.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dowley 

 

Pour the boiling water over the skin of the chicken, nice and slowly in sequence.. dont miss any parts of the skin.  Watch as the skin tightens..   this pulls the proteins in the skin together to form a tight surface which crisps up better. 

 

I remember my Uncle use to do a whole roasted suckling pig in his wood fire oven that he built himself in his back yard. His secret for the crispy skin (which was always the best part) was to pour boiling water over the pig right before roasting. I never knew why this worked and forgot all about his "trick" until Dowley mentioned it. I never would have thought to try this with a whole roasted chicken.

Also, I've heard a lot about brining, both here and on other sites, but never anything specific. Do you have any links to articles that discuss the whys and hows of brining, specifically how much water & salt to use and how long to brine?

Thanks!

Benway: Try rubbing the butter (preferably a compound butter) under the skin. The result is a moist, flaverfull chicken with beautiful crisp skin.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amy83 
Also, I've heard a lot about brining, both here and on other sites, but never anything specific. Do you have any links to articles that discuss the whys and hows of brining, specifically how much water & salt to use and how long to brine?

 

Thanks!

www.cooksillustrated.com has some worthwhile simple articles on brines and brining. You can get two weeks free access to the site but it still requires a credit card that they'll charge if you don't cancel the subscription before the two weeks are up. If you go this route, search on Corned Beef, Roast Turkey, Roast Chicken, Fried Chicken, Pork Loin, Pork Tenderloin and injection. That will cover the articles and recipes and techniques that I remember them discussing. There's probably some others as well.

There are different kinds of brines for different purposes.

Cured meats like hams or corned beef are brined longer and in stronger brines than you would for a roasted fowl.  For larger cuts like a turkey or a pork shoulder, most people brine for 8-12 hours (overnight) in a lighter strength brine.

Cook's Illustrated also uses a high strength short time brine for chickens, only an hour. 

Brine ingredients are primarily salt and sugar. Salt adds seasoned flavor to the meat and denatures protein creating a dam of sorts that helps hold the extra moisture in the meat.  Sugar is used to balance the added salt flavors. Plenty of other ingredients are added for flavor purposes, but the brine action is mostly about the salt and its effects.

Kosher poultry, treated with salt as part of the slaughtering process has many of the same benefits as brined poultry. You should give that a try and see what you think as well. The salt treatment for koshering is simpler than brining and changes the meat less letting it be more of what it is itself rather than what you added via the brine.

You should also look into injection, a sort of cross between a shortcut brine and internal marinade.

I'll give that a shot the next time I do a whole bird.  When I'm roasting chicken parts however I like to glue the skin on with transglutaminase and sandwiching butter in there would disturb that bond.  Its a technique we'd use at the restaurant to solve that "first bite" problem where the whole skin comes off with the first bite.  It was important to the chef that nobody ever looked unsexy while trying to eat our food.

I rarely deal with parts, other than when pan-frying breasts, so that's not a problem for me. When roasting or grilling whole birds I usually butterfly them, dry them well, then do the butter-under-the-skin thing.

Of late I've been using anchovy butter, which brings a nice touch of---are you ready---umami to the chicken. Last week I used the same technique for quail, with garlic butter, and they were the best I've ever made.

I Rub the Chicken down with oil, Salt and pepper inside and out, I then use a Cajun sea, paprika, granulated garlic on the outside. I cook the Chicken on high heat with vegetables tossed in the same seasoning and oil.............ChefBillyB

I've been a fan of dry curing a chicken for a few days before roasting.   Been doing it Zuni style before I every heard of the Zuni Cafe.  The results are excellent.  Very moist meat and crispy skin

Thanks for the all the resources Phatch. Beautiful pictures ChefBilly and Scubadoo. 

If possible leave in fridge uncovered a day or two . Refrigeration tends to dehydrate foods and will result in a dry bird which roast up with a crispy skin. As far as kashering or doing kosher, it sometimes draws out all the blood  in the bird or animal and therefore when cooked is a bit dry and in meat tough ( also because most kosher meat is not aged long enough)

I often wonder what people are talking about when they say crispy chicken skin.

Mostly they seem to be actually talking about browning the skin.

Peking duck has crispy skin, and you can get crispy (as in crackling) chicken in a Chinese restaurant.

dcarch

Posted by dcarch 

People are talking about crispy, as in crisp.  In other words it breaks, rather than "chews" when you bite it.  It doesn't shatter with the same enthusiasm as Peking Duck, but nevertheless... crisp.

We're not talking about browning.  We're talking about crisp. 

I suspect you're doing something wrong with your chicken and suspect that mostly comes from not drying your chickens' skins thoroughly before cooking because that's the most common sin.

BDL

Exactly.  My chicken skin comes out brown but flabby off my smoker but very crisp with high proper prep and high heat roasting.

BDL mentions Peking Duck which is hung up for days while it air dries and the fat drips .Therefore again dry. Like I said leave in fridge for 2 to 3 days and oh yea cook on a rack and as liquid comes out while cooking, pour it out so as not to create a moist enviorment in the oven.

I just saw an episode on American Test Kitchen, “How To Make The Perfect Crispy Roasted Chicken”

Well, it was very obvious that what I saw the chicken was far from being crispy. It was very much nicely browned, but when they cut into the skin, it was very soft.

What I made crispy chicken skin salad and crispy duck skin.

dcarch

Wow, that looks fantastic.

Once while boning chicken thighs I took the skin and scraped off as much fat as I could with my knife then panned them to render the little left on.  They were like the ones in your first two photos.  Damn tasty and my wife wouldn't touch them.  Your presentation is nice

Quote:

Originally Posted by chefedb 

BDL mentions Peking Duck which is hung up for days while it air dries and the fat drips .Therefore again dry. Like I said leave in fridge for 2 to 3 days and oh yea cook on a rack and as liquid comes out while cooking, pour it out so as not to create a moist enviorment in the oven.

When I'm in France I place the chicken briefly over the flame on the stovetop. It removes any stuck feather bits (not sure of the English name?) and dries the skin very nicely. Then rub the skin with a bit of oil, and into a super hot oven. The result is the crispiest skin I've ever seen on a chicken. We don't use a rack but then again chicken in France are dry when you buy them. In fact the butcher just wraps it losely in paper, because there are no juices escaping. 

Here in the U.S. the chicken is usually wrapped and sealed in plastic and full of juice/blood, and I've rarely seen more than 3 or 4 feather bits leftover, so I don't bother. I just pat dry it with paper towels and into a hot oven (no rubbing with oil). 

I never understood why they do that here, when I break down a chicken I have to wash my hand 3 or 4 times in the process because it's so wet and dripping with juices. 

You are so right, the chickens here in many cases are what they call Frosted a shy degeree or 2 above freezing to extend their shelf time. In many cases water is added (they claim to clean, I claim to add weight) like a Turkey or ham which up to 15% water weight is added. The only advantage to our birds is that they are federaly  inspected where as the birds hanging in other countries may not be

    When I was a kid my job was to singe the feathers off the chickens that had necks and feet attached , my mom bought from a store called a Butcher Shop or Meat Market.

    Progress shall we call it has all but eliminated these as well as fresh fish markets. The fish markets were helped to go out also because the modern housewife only purchased shrimp,scallops , sole and flounder. Very few other species were purchased. It is called proress, I however call it a shame.  Many of you younger people here will never get a chance to see the chickens like this or fresh fowl of any kind and its in a way sad .EJB

Well, there are several things one can do to get that perfect bird.  I'm not someone who really likes to brine so I won't recommned that.  But, rubbing a compund butter under and on top of the skin goes a long way to keep your bird moist while infusing nice flavors and browning/crisping the skin.  I also like using cured meats under the skin, too, such as prosciutto, bacon, etc...along with various fresh herbs...incredible results.  And of course, one has to mention proper cooking.  I think the best way to cook a baked chicken is simply at 350 degrees and at 15-20 minutes per pound with regular basting.  My birds come out incredible with the above mentioned every time.  And don't forget to add lots and lots of love and passion to your cooking--nothing in the world can replace that!! 

One other thing worth mentioning is injecting various marinades and flavorings, etc.  I love injecting because it really infuses great flavors and also makes the bird very tender.  I use several different fats, liquid, herb combinations and it comes out really very nice.  The only caveat is to make sure your injector has a big enough hole at the end of the needle to accommidate herbs and various other goodies...  And also, if you insist on brining, then don't inject because you will end up with a soggy bird and your injection will likely run out everywhere, causing a mess and precluding your ability to make a proper pan-sauce, among other things... 

The flavors of your chickens must be great, there is no way however that when adding all those marinades and injecting liquid flavorings and basting that it will be crisp. There are just to many liquids involved to produce a steam or wet oven enviorment. Baco under skin or pancetta or prossuito under skin will also stop from drying the top skin.

Quote:

Originally Posted by chefedb 

You are so right, the chickens here in many cases are what they call Frosted a shy degeree or 2 above freezing to extend their shelf time. In many cases water is added (they claim to clean, I claim to add weight) like a Turkey or ham which up to 15% water weight is added. The only advantage to our birds is that they are federaly  inspected where as the birds hanging in other countries may not be

    When I was a kid my job was to singe the feathers off the chickens that had necks and feet attached , my mom bought from a store called a Butcher Shop or Meat Market.

    Progress shall we call it has all but eliminated these as well as fresh fish markets. The fish markets were helped to go out also because the modern housewife only purchased shrimp,scallops , sole and flounder. Very few other species were purchased. It is called proress, I however call it a shame.  Many of you younger people here will never get a chance to see the chickens like this or fresh fowl of any kind and its in a way sad .EJB

I agree it's sad. The chickens I buy in France are 6 month old, they're pretty firm and taste like chicken. It takes me a while to break them down as I have to fight to find the joints, to break them, to cut through them etc. The dark meat is dark and the white meat is white. 

The chickens I buy here are... what... 4-5 weeks old at the most? They have the texture of filet mignon and taste bland. I can break them down in no time at all as the joints are so soft and easy to twist and break. The dark meat is just as white as the white meat. 

What kills me is that it seems the taste has evolved too, as people love a tender, soft chicken, even if it's bland, versus a chicken that has a good taste, but is firmer and the meat is darker - and there's also less white meat. 

In one of my main French cooking books, the author describes how to chose a chicken, for example by feeling for freshness with your fingers between the wing and the body to see if it's wet or dry. Try that on a plastic wrapped chicken. But who cares, right, the FDA inspected it so it's safe to eat, that's all that matters. 

Well, that's exactly why you cannot do all of those techniques on the same bird... :)  For instance, if you baste, then you don't inject.  I usually use the compund butter, stuffed herbs and varous other flavoring techniques with basting and the bird comes out incredibly good and very crispy...  I've never had a problem getting nice, crispy skin.  But of course, a person has to use their ingredients in a judicious manner and not totally devastate the bird.  And frankly, I have no idea who likes bland food...never heard of that trend...hahaha...

Quote:

Originally Posted by sarahg 

 I have no idea who likes bland food...never heard of that trend...hahaha...

My point was that pretty much all the chicken you get in the U.S. today is bland. I source my chicken from a farmer's market and it's the best chicken around, to me it tastes much better than any free range organic chicken you can get from whole food or whatnot, and still it's bland in comparison to the chicken I get from the farmer in France. 

You may not realize it, but as a society we're all progressively getting used to bland tasting food. We compensate with crazy recipes and spices and brining and injecting and basting etc... but if you put your hands onto a real chicken, one that was given a chance to grow at its natural pace and live past a few months, all of that stuff really isn't necessary. 

Of course I don't expect anyone who's never tasted what I, personally, call a "real chicken", to understand what I'm talking about. That's the sad part though. For example, I've read on these forums a while ago someone say "rabbit tastes just like chicken". I thought that was the most ridiculous statement, as my uncles used to hunt, and I've had "real rabbit" and it tastes nothing like chicken. Then one day I bought a farm raised rabbit from a supermarket, and guess what: it tasted like chicken! Or, to be more accurate, it tasted like nothing, so it tasted like the bland chicken one can buy today in a supermarket. 

Same is true of milk, cream, butter, tomatoes, fruits, etc etc...

What kills me is at my kid's school, they want to teach kids to eat "good things" and "eat healthy", so they buy them those "vegetable trays". You know the black plastic tray with high-fructose-corn-syrup-based-ranch-sauce in the middle and orange, green and red stuff around that have a vague resemblance to carrots, broccoli and cherry tomatoes, but taste like purified drinking water? To me that's closer to plastic than to food. 

Sorry I completely derailed the thread once again. 

Well, yes, that was indeed a derailment of the highest order lol...but here in the US all food production is aimed at squeezing every possible penny out of an investment so therefore the use of all kinds of chemicals and hormones that accelerate growth cycles so that animals can be brought to market younger and younger and in greeater numbers.  It certainly does cause a loss in flavor becuase everyone knows that the older an animal is the more flavorful--but the more tough, too.  So younger animals are more tender with more delicate flavors while older animals are more flavorful but are tougher and require additional methods to make them tender and more palatable to the American tastes.  Food in Europe is an entirely different matter altogether.  The diffrerences between here and there are huge and certainly nobody would argue that...but very interesting, nonetheless.

Doesn't matter young or old the birds are pumped so marinating and basting is just a waste of time. Look at Outback they use USGood grade but its treated with Papain so every steak is tender. It also contains flavoring and Hydrolized Protein for even more flavor. YUM YUM but don't eat therwe often or your stomach will suffer.

This is a 3.5 pound young fryer. I brine it in the fridge about 3 hours, pat dry. Rub with  garlic and adobo seasoning. The cavity is stuffed with fresh herbs, lemons cut in 1/4's and onions or shallots. I place butter under the skin, and roast on a rack in a baking dish, uncovered 325 f  dead air oven about 90 minutes. If it isnt fully done, pull the leg/thigh sections open, cover and bake an additional 30 minutes tented. Let rest 20 minsbefore carving. You can baste if you like. It helps to use only fresh, not previously frozen, chicken also. enjoy! adamrk@gmail.com

Treating the bird in a simple manner is usually the best way to go. If you want crispy skin on your bird the first thing you should do is blot it dry. Now, you don't want to cut the skin of the bird because it exposes the flesh and can dry the meat out. The best way to go about seasoning the bird is to not rub the bird with olive oil or butter first  because when you do that you create a barrier of oil that the salt will not penetrate into the meat as much, it will penetrate a little, but not as much as seasoning the bird with S&P first then brushing the bird with olive oil. The best method to creating that crispy skin that everyone loves is by oven searing the bird. Bringing the temperature of the oven to about 500 degrees and quickly browning the skin then lowering the temperature to about 350-375, depending on the size of the bird. The bigger the piece of meat, the longer cooking time, and the lower the temp.

 Hope this helped a little

Have a good holiday!!

Well, in the case of poultry, I happen to think marinating or injecting is extremely useful for more than just the obvious reasons and I have had some really amazing results in so doing...but anyway, everyone has their pet ways of doing things...which is what makes the diiference between one chef and another... :)