I know I talk a lot about steak on this site but that is only because steak is awesome. But let’s switch it up a bit and talk about roast chicken.
When I was a kid my mom would make a roast chicken about once every 2 weeks or so. Being the youngest I always kind of got the shaft and had to watch while my parents ate the breasts and my brother and sister got the drumsticks so I was always stuck with the thighs, wings, or back. Little did I know then that the wings and thighs contain some of the most flavorful meat on the chicken but that is a story for another day.
Anyway, she would basically season the chicken with seasoning salt, throw some butter in the pan, and roast the chicken for an hour or so basting it every 10-15 minutes. It always turned out a nice moist chicken with a good, flavorful skin.
Over the past few years I have roasted quite a few chickens and have tried a few different methods and recipes. My most recent attempt was following Thomas Keller’s recipe but I have to say I wasn’t too impressed. Maybe I need to try it again but I followed the technique properly and the texture of the chicken just wasn’t right. The white meat was nice and moist like it should be but the dark meat was a weird, rubbery texture. Far be it from me to tell Thomas Keller he is wrong but I wasn’t a fan of his roast chicken.
I have tried a few different recipes and methods and some have been good, some haven’t been great. A couple years back I had a recipe I used as a starting point and for the life of me I can’t find it again (This recipe from Michael Ruhlman might be it) but I still remember it (I think) and it goes something like this (and this has some of my own modifications in it):
Equipment: A cast iron pan (10.25 or 12 inches is good) and a probe thermometer
Ingredients:
1 Whole Chicken – They are usually about 3-4 pounds at the grocery store. Be sure to take the giblets and neck out if they are in there.
1 Lemon
1 Stick Butter
Salt and Pepper (you could use any sort of seasoning salt or bbq rub you want but I usually just stick with salt and pepper)
Directions:
1. Put your cast iron pan in the oven at 500 degrees to get hot
2. Pat the chicken dry inside and out. No need to rinse. That usually does more harm than good.
3. Sprinkle the inside and out with salt and pepper. Be fairly liberal here.
4. Rub the butter all over the chicken inside and out. Yeah, this is kind of messy. You can shove some butter under the skin if you want but I don’t really bother with that.
5. Cut the lemon in half and shove it in the cavity of the chicken. Keller really doesn’t like this because he says it creates steam which keeps the skin from crisping up. My thinking is the steam from the lemon will hit the chicken from the inside and help keep the meat a bit moister while allowing the butter to do its job crisping up the skin. Many people debate the merits of shoving a lemon (or onion or other herbs) in the chicken but all I know is I can taste the slightest hint of lemon in the meat so it must be doing something.
5a. You can truss the chicken or tie the legs if you want but I rarely bother. I usually just tuck the wings under and call it good.
6. Put the chicken breast up in the pan. It will sizzle and hiss like crazy but stick it back in the oven at 500 degrees for 10 minutes or so.
7. After 10 minutes (it will be quite smokey) turn the oven down to 375 and let the chicken roast until the breast reaches 165 degrees. This should take 45 minutes or so. Feel free to baste the bird every 1o minutes if you want. I like to do it mostly because that is what my mom did and I think it helps the skin crisp up (the butter is basically frying the skin) and it gives the bird a nice golden brown color.
8. After the chicken hits 165 in the breast meat pull it out, tent it with foil, and let it rest for 10-15 minutes before carving.
If you want you can pour off the drippings from the pan and make a wonderful pan sauce you can pour over the chicken. The lemon adds a lot to the sauce if you go that way. Basically pour off the juice and a tablespoon or two of fat… oh, just go look for a pan sauce recipe yourself. There are too many variations to do it justice here.
Assuming you have done everything right you will be rewarded with a moist, tender bird with a nice crispy, bite through skin. One chicken will usually feed a family of 3 or 4 fairly easily assuming you have a side or two. If there are only 2 of you there will be plenty of leftovers to use for another meal. With chickens running around $10 each that isn’t too shabby for a couple meals worth of meat.
Why this recipe works: First the cast iron pan holds a lot of heat and will help cook the chicken from the bottom up. With the oven starting at 500 and some fat all over the skin the crisping process happens early on in the cooking process. Lowering the heat allows the rest of the meat to cook a bit more gently and allows some of the connective tissue in the dark meat to break down a bit leaving some very succulent meat. The lemon, salt, and pepper give just enough seasoning to the meat but still allow you taste the chicken.
