so last night i knew that we were going to roast a chicken for dinner. we had bought 3.71 lb chicken at the store the other night, and it was patiently awaiting its demise.

normally i would have chopped up a mixture of the herbs we currently have in our fridge (sage, italian parsley, thyme, cilantro), made herbed butter (or rather, herbed smart balance), and slathered the chicken (under the skin and on the skin, of course) with the butter and s&p, and then thrown it in the oven for about an hour. but i decided to try something different, something so simple i had my doubts, and it turned out to be quite awesome (it yielded a crispy skinned chicken, yet moist, perfectly cooked meat) and one of the easiest things i've done for dinner (besides eating leftovers).

i found a recipe on epicurious supposedly by the famous thomas keller (of the famed bouchon, the french laundry, and per se, none of which, i have eaten at yet *hint hint*). if you check out the recipe on epicurious, you might notice that the recipe looks rather long for something that i am claiming to be so easy, but if you actually read the instructions for mon poulet roti, you will notice that t.keller also instructs you on how to eat the bird as well. (if you are like me, however, you probably don't need any instruction on how to eat. hihi)

here's a quick summary of the recipe and what we did last night. i should note though, that i did not baste the chicken once it was done with the thyme and the chicken juices as the recipe says to do, which probably would have lessened the skin's crispiness.

first, pre-heated the oven to 450F (i know, high, right?). meanwhile, cavin washed the chicken (inside and out) and dried it extremely well with gobs of papertowels. the key is to get the bird as dry as possible so that no steaming will occur once the chicken is in the hot hot oven, resulting in crispy perfection. next we trussed the bird with some cotton string, and then generously seasoned with s&p (inside and out). t.keller says he "likes to rain salt over the bird so that it has a nice uniform coating that will result in a crisp, salty, flavorful skin (about 1 tablespoon)." (i'm a salt addict so i added a little bit more when cavin wasn't looking.) then we put the seasoned chicken on a roasting rack in our pan, and threw it in the oven, and kept it there for about 40 minutes (didn't baste, didn't look).

after 40 minutes, i just wanted to check to see what was going on, because it was at this point we started hearing splattering noises coming from the oven. cavin checked the temperature near the thigh, and it was around 150-155 degrees, so we threw it back in. lots of splattering was going on, but we weren't that concerned because when we checked the temperature the first time, the skin was getting deliciously crispy, so we knew we were doing something right.

about 20 minutes later at the 1 hour mark, we checked the temp again at the thigh, and it was in the high 170's, so it was time to take the bird out. carefully, cavin pulled it out (our oven door is constricted by a shelf, which, btw, really sucks, so anything we do in the oven has to be done with lots of care) and let it rest for 10-15 minutes. while it was resting, we noticed that we could see the salt baked into the chicken skin, as if the two had combined forces to defend someone from getting to the meat. we were quite excited.

finally it was time to eat. t.keller suggests eating the middle wing joint first, which we did, and it was salty (but not too much!) and crispy, and moist all at the same time. (it's kind of like discovering a perfectly roasted lechon for the first time!) then i cut the leg and thighs off and we devoured that with our leftover quinoa from the night before.

i was worried that the breast meat would dry out, and although we didn't eat the breasts last night, while packing it up, i tasted it and it was very moist! the one thing that wasn't awesome was the underside of the chicken, which wasn't able to crisp up as much as the top. i suppose having a convection oven might do that, but i was prepared for this and didn't eat the bottom skin. and i know i know. i'm trying to watch what i eat, but good god man! how could you not eat the flavor profiles of the salted skin? (don't worry though, i only ate the least fattiest parts of the skin.)

i should also note that before cavin and i embarked on our mon poulet roti adventure, he lined the bottom of the oven with two layers of aluminum foil, because we had read the reviews on epicurious and a lot of people complained about smoke alarms being set off and what not. we did not have anything of the sort happen to us, and when we make this again, we probably won't use the foil. though, i will say that for the last 20 minutes of cooking, there was a lot of splattering going on, so your oven might be need a little cleaning. (but don't ovens clean themselves these days? ah, the wacky technology.)

i almost saved the carcass for chicken stock, but then remembered that we still have a few cartons of organic chicken stock, and we are trying to reserve space in the freezer for the pork (4 more days).

so, to sum it up, here's what you need to do if you want to roast chicken the t.keller way:

1. preheat oven to 450F
2. wash and completely dry chicken, inside and out
3. truss bird (in my opinion, this isn't totally necessary, but it makes for a nice, compact bird, with no arms and legs flailing about)
4. generously season with salt and pepper
5. cook bird until thigh meat reaches about 175-180
6. rest bird for 10-15 minutes, then eat
7. be amazed at how something so simple can be so delicious

Labels: chicken, cooking