I have two chickens I want to roast tomorrow

[Duer 157099]

And I've never been thoroughly satisfied when I do it at home, compared to, say, the rotisserie chickens at Costco.

I want something that's just awesome.

Help me out here please.

[Warpy]

1. Massage their skins with butter

then season them with salt, pepper, poultry seasoning, onion powder, and anything else you think will taste good. Stuff half an onion and a stalk of celery into the cavity. Tuck the wings underneath and wrap the whole thing in cheesecloth. Roast on a rack according to weight.

I've always had good success with this method and it's the easiest way I know of to get juicy, flavorful chicken with crisp skin. The cheesecloth comes right off when the bird is done. Do remember to rest the chicken for at least 10 minutes while you make the gravy out of the pan drippings.

The other way is to season the butter, itself, and put it under the breast skin, but I find this fussy and unnecessary.

[marybourg]

3. If you don't have cheese cloth, try cutting up a brown paper bag,

butter one side, and cover chicken with buttered brown paper. Yum!

[MajorChode]

2. Here is the challenge to roasting fowl

A chicken has white meat and dark meat and they don't cook at the same rate nor are they done at the same temperature. If you roast a chicken to the point at which the white meat is just done and still moist, the dark meat will be undercooked. If you cook the chicken to the point at which the dark meat is done, the white meat will be overcooked and dry.

There's all sorts of methods you can use to overcome this problem. What Costco does is they brine their chicken before cooking it on the rotisserie. Brining allows you to saturate the chicken with liquid and seasonings which makes it more moist and flavorful. That moist cooking method also provides a bit of a buffer between doneness and dryness. So you can cook the chicken until the dark meat is done without drying out the white meat. If you google chicken+brine you'll get all sorts of instructions on how to brine a chicken. Just keep it simple at first. Water and salt are the two main ingredients. Everything else just adds dimension to your brine.

If you don't have a rotisserie at home, you can just roast the chicken in a roasting pan at home and it will be fine. Be careful not to overcook because even a brined chicken can dry out if overcooked. Cook to an internal temp of 165 degrees and let the chicken rest for about 10 minutes before serving. If you don't have a good meat thermometer, check for doneness by pulling one of the drumsticks out and check to see if the juices run clear.

If you want to get a little fancier, you can brine and then butterfly the chicken, then broil it in your oven. The butterfly and broiling method is described pretty well by Alton Brown, but it's hard to envision how to do it unless you've seen it done.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/broiled-butterflied-chicken-recipe/index.html

[noamnety]

7. butterflying or spatchcocking

If you go on youtube and search for spatchcocking, you'll find some video demonstrations of how to do that. I spatchcocked a turkey this year, it cooked much quicker and I thought the white meat was better that way. I had trouble breaking the breastbone - on a chicken that might be easy, but on a slippery raw turkey it was more challenging than I anticipated. I ended up covering the whole bird in plastic, grabbing onto the counter for stability, and jumping up and down on it til it snapped. I don't believe I've ever seen Alton use that method, it's something best done without video cameras or witnesses.

[MajorChode]

11. It is easy on a chicken

I have never even considered doing that to a turkey, but I normally just cook them on the rotisserie anyway.

[grasswire]

4. the rotisserie chickens are brined

So you could do that if you have time and want to do so.

Otherwise...

My guests have always raved over this method: Loosen the breast skin with a finger and underneath it tuck fresh herb leaves (basil is delish, rosemary also, sage too -- whatever you have) and ultra thin slices of lemon, and butter. You can also put slivers of garlic in there. Then pat your chicken dry and very liberally salt with kosher salt. Then squeeze fresh lemon juice drizzling over the top. Roast in a hot oven (I use 400 degrees) till the drumstick rotates loosely when grasped.

The aroma and flavor will be outstanding, the skin will be crisp and delicious.

[Phentex]

5. I combine this method and warpy's...

butter under the skin, garlic and herbs in the cavity but I cover loosely for the first part of the cooking and then uncover for browning. I could eat the skin alone it's so good! It beats store bought any day and I've never had a problem with drying it out.

[Warpy]

10. The bird browns just fine under the cheesecloth

and the cheesecloth is easier to remove from brown, crisp skin.

It just looks weird taking a mummy out of the oven.

[hippywife]

6. I love this recipe and

have made it several times.

http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/honey_glazed_lemon_roast_chicken/

Hope they taste wonderful, whichever method you choose. :hi:

[The empressof all]

8. Use the beer can method

I drink the beer. Wash out the can and refil the can with white wine and herbs. But you can also just use the beer.

http://bbq.about.com/cs/chicken/a/aa100400a.htm

I do these in my oven all the time.

[AwakeAtLast]

9. Every now and then I pull out my Pampered Chef stoneware roaster

I stuff the cavity with lemon, onion and herbs, salt and pepper the skin, and bake at 400 for about an hour. The skin is not as crisp as open roasting, but the flavor of the meat is really good!

A Nesco roaster will give you about the same results, since you said you had two. Two would fit well.

[Duer 157099]

12. Gosh, lots of good suggestions here, thanks everyone

I don't think I have enough cheesecloth, but I do have brown paper bags.

What temp should I go for? 350? 375?

I have a meat thermometer so I can check for doneness that way.

I usually just pick up the store rotisserie chickens because of how little luck I have making them at home. Somehow I managed to make a really good turkey for Thanksgiving though.

Sigh. I hope this works out.

[Stinky The Clown]

13. Chicken under a brick

Sounds like a gimmick, but it isn't. Truly great chicken.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=236&topic_id=65618

[Duer 157099]

14. I still have not cooked them

I decided yesterday that I needed to brine them, so I took the plunge and hitchcocked them (wait, what was that term again?) and they've been immersed in a solution of salt, lemon pepper, garlic and onion powders, and some fresh herbs (thyme, sage and rosemary). Uncertain as to whether the brining liquid should have anything but salt, but oh well, that's what I did.

I have avoided brining because the one time I tried it many, many years ago, I didn't like the result and I never knew if that's how it was supposed to be or if I did something wrong. The result tasted, to me, like the kind of meat you get at the deli counter. Not the result I wanted. But we'll see how this time goes.

I watched a show recently, Heston Blumenthal, called "In Search of Perfection" and the episode was about some form of chicken (tikka?) and he wanted to see the effect of a yogurt marinade, so he had a guy put the chicken with and without yogurt into an MRI scanner to evaluate penetration of the marinade. Results showed that the yogurt had a significant effect.

So, I'm thinking: after brining, maybe I should do a brief yogurt marinade of some sort, maybe with some chili powders, tumeric?

Also, if I do that I bet I can make some kick-ass fried chicken with some of the parts, similar to a buttermilk marinade.

Not sure what I'll actually do, will report back with results, whatever they are.

[Dora]

15. If you haven't cooked them yet, I recommend roasting at 425 degrees.

The birds will cook thoroughly, the skin will crisp, the cooking time will be shortened enough to prevent the white meat from drying and your dark meat will be perfect.

Do some googling on high-temp chicken roasting to see what I'm talking about. http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=high+temp+roast+chicken&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

[tishaLA]

16. I just watched Heston Blumenthal's "In Search of Perfection"

and they did a roast chicken. It was very complex but I'm sure it was delicious. I'm going to try it sometime when I have 2 days to cook a chicken.

It went something like this:

1. Blumenthal insists that a poulet de Bresse is really the only acceptable chicken for roasting, so get that. m Remove the wingtips to make chicken butter when the chicken is finished roasting.
2. Brine it in 8% brine solution for 6 hours.
3. Rinse thoroughly and allow to sit in regular water for an hour to get rid of excess saltiness.
4. Blanche it for 30 seconds in boiling water.
5. Remove from water with tongs and put into an ice bath for several minutes.
6. Repeat steps 2 and 3. Allow to rest for 24 hours.
7. Roast the bird at 60 degrees C for, I think he said, 5-6 hours, until the internal temperature of the bird is 60 C (the low slow temperatures keep the proteins tighter and decrease the amount of moisture loss; if your oven doesn't go that low, take it as low as possible, but get the bird to 60 C)
8. Sauté the bird in butter and then inject it with chicken butter through a needle baster, which I don't have.

I'm a fan of Blumenthal and really want to go to his Fat Duck restaurant. This seems exceptionally fussy, but I'm going to try it. Typically I just use the Barefoot Contessa's method, which has worked wonderfully for me time after time.

[Duer 157099]

17. I'm officially a brine convert

Half of the chicken pieces I roasted after an overnight brining, and it was as tasty as any rotisserie chicken I've ever gotten.

The other half ended up in a yogurt marinade for another day, it was basically yogurt plus as many spices/herbs as I could find that I thought would work. Turmeric, chili (ancho and chipotle), onion, garlic, oregano, thyme, lemon pepper, I think that was mostly it. No salt since it had already brined.

Then I cooked it using the ultra hot technique, just put them in a 500 degree oven, skin up, and let it go for about 40 minutes at which point the skin was incredibly crispy and browned, so I turned them over to get the underside browned a bit, let it go another 20 mins or so, and it was fantasitically yummy.

So, I conclude that brining is the secret that I've been missing!

Thanks to you all :thumbsup: