JUICIEST AND SUPER TENDER CHICKEN

I never brine or marinate for roast chicken.  I do make sure not to forget to season under the skin with butter or olive oil and whatever herbs I'm using.  I use a heavy skillet, just big enough to nestle my chicken in - I don't like using large roasting pans for this.  Put some oiled and seasoned veggies like onions, celery, garlic and carrots on the bottom and nestle the chicken on top.  I also add about a quarter cup of water just to make sure the bottom of the pan doesn't dry out.  Nestle the chicken on top and roast at 400 degrees uncovered for about an hour or until done.  No basting needed, no low and slow cooking, no marinating, just roasted chicken. 

A roast chicken can only be as good as the chicken you buy in the first place. So spend some money for a chicken with some flavor. Kosher brands are often quite good for example. And with the salting part of the koshering process, you shouldn't brine them, Koshering achieves much the same results anyway.

Much of the appeal of a roast chicken comes in the skin. Which usually means a higher roasting temperature.

This is my preferred method of making such a dish.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfu_zZ3u9ys is part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=ho2yd9TUBCc part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_lQaYWVdrk&feature=endscreen part 3

Use the Reynolds release foil and you'll have no problems with the potatoes. They're even better than the chicken.

I cut it into its constituent parts, brine it skin on for 24 hrs, take it out of the brine and set onto a wire rack set over a baking sheet and let it air dry in the fridge for another 24hrs. To cook I heat up a pan, brown the skin and cook it skin up for about 20-25mins at 400F or until juices run clear. Not only do you get ridiculously moist and tender chicken, but the crispiest and most delicious skin you ever did have.

Appropriate brining time depends on the strength (salt : water ratio) of the brine; as well as the amount of sugar and aromatics. Brining a chicken overnight would call for a relatively weak brine.

If you want advice, be very specific about what you plan to do. I can't help you if I don 't have any idea of what you're getting up to.

Brining has plusses and minuses. The drawbacks you want to watch out for are watery chicken (too weak a brine, too long a soak), and overly salty chicken.

When you cook brined chicken, remember that it's already going to be fairly salty; so either eschew (gezundheit) further salting or limit it. In other words, don't use your normal rub.

I have no problems getting an extremely crisp skin on a whole roasted chicken, brined or not. The key to crisp skin -- and pay attention if you're going to brine -- is not only high heat but making sure the skin is completely free of moisture (but not necessarily oil or butter) before the bird goes in the oven.

There's a bunch of other stuff to know, but I need to have a better idea of your plan.

BDL

One of the easiest ways is to not overcook the chicken.

Open the chicken or duck and keep in fridge UNcovered at least overnigt to dry it out. You will then find it cooks moe crisp.

My thoughts on this as well. 

 

Juicy is a mainly a function of cooking method. When learning where to stop the cooking process, a good probe style thermometer is not a bad idea.  Stab it down into the thigh but don't hit the leg bone (or the reading will be off from the meat itself).  The real trick is managing to have the thigh get to just cooked without the breast overcooking (usually not a problem on smaller chickens but the there are some behemoths out there).  What I find in general is that if I shoot for the lowest "safe/approved 165 °F" end of the spectrum in the thigh temp then the breast is usually fine on a chicken. Smaller birds are better and I prefer to do two small chickens over one large on if feeding a bigger crowd. Also when the thigh starts loosening up (you can wiggle the leg and it moves at the thigh joint rather easily) it's there but you have to be careful or the temp can overshoot.  Clear juices running out is another common test. 

 

Tender is more a function of the genetics/lifestyle/age/processing of the bird.  If you are doing local, free range ones/etc make sure to test this out in the home kitchen prior to serving it to guests.  Ranged birds can be very tough if the bird is even a little over the age mark or/and if the rest period isn't sufficient (or conversely if the chicken isn't killed and cooked within a few hours prior to rigor). 

As a sort of general rule, everything else being equal, younger chicken will be more tender but have less taste than older.

If you overcook chicken, brining will give you a little more leeway in terms of maintaining juiciness. But brining isn't a panancea. It has to be done right, it's not infinitely successful if you really mistreat the cooking the process, and so on.

There are a lot of right ways to roast a whole chicken "right," in the sense of getting good results. I use "classically French" technique when I roast in the oven indoors, including forcing butter and herbs under the skin, a dry skin (but NOT dried overnight in the oven -- a paper towel is enough), trussing (very important), lightly filling cavity with herbs and citrus (and sometimes onion), a hot oven, some rotation, etc.

Whether I brine or not depends mostly on how much lead time I'm able to give myself. If I have enough time, and am not doing so many chickens at once that it becomes problematic I'll brine -- which is another way of saying it generally gives me better results. But, it's not the most important part of cooking chicken.

BDL

I brine if I have time but I always remove the bird from the brine and dry with paper towels before placing it on a rack in the fridge for a few hours before cooking. Getting the surfact of the bird dry before cooking helps with nice crisp skin.

 

Dave

My technique is very similar to Koukouvagia's (surprise) - butter under skin (with herbs - i like crushed garlic and black, pink pepper and coriander seeds crushed roughly, plus very little fresh thyme.

I put it on a large flat low-sided baking sheet (1 inch or less border) lined with parchment paper.  Turn oven up to 450.  Dry skin with towels. 

When oven is hot i put it in low in the oven - cooking till tests done (piercing, feeling the knife, seeing the color of the juices) - if it's a big bird (turkey, for instance, or the big chickens you get in the states) i might loosely tent it not to get it to burn. 

The skin is crispy and tasty, the juices are kept inside and the chicken is incredibly moist. 

 

I like the low sides on a wide pan because i'm convinced that having sides produces steam that sort of hovers around the chicken and that keeps it from crisping.  Then almost halfway through i put in seasoned potato wedges and let them get nice and browned outside, soft inside.  Oh no, my mouth is watering already.  The wide pan allows me to cook the potatoes in the drippings and they come out so tasty.