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Your best tips for a perfect roast chicken?

Have you got a meat thermometer? Chicken is amazing cooked longer at a really low temp... Problem is it can be tricky judging oven temp. On my mum's I do it a bit under 100c for 3 hours or so, but usually end up having to turn it up a bit. You want to get it to a core temp of 70c or so and hold it there. Think I got it off Heston, who does it to 60c, but I'm a bit more wary. This is his recipe actually. Lemon up arse. I don't usually brine (largely because roast chicken tends to be a last minute roast choice for me), but it works well anyway - really lovely, juicy, tender meat. Also not as rigorous with the resting time. Whether you use anything from that or not, the tip about taking off the trussing is a good one - cooks evenly.

Oh, and you don't get much gravy doing that (stays in the chicken), so it helps to have a butcher who'll set you some bones, or you can buy some legs and roast them for some other dish. And blast it at the end to get it crisp. The crispiness in chicken skin really doesn't take long and is not at all hard - just high temp as quick as possible.
 
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Buy a can of your favorite beer, drink half and stick the rest up it's jacksy.
Whack it in the oven, with it sitting upright on the open can.
 
i normally put lemon, butter, garlic, and red onion up his bum. And then put some butter and crumbled chicken stock cube in a bowl and microwave it for a few seconds and stir up so the butter and stock is like a liquidy pastey-ness and rub it all over the bird then roast basting every 30/40 mins
 
My favourite method is to use a few heads of garlic and shove whole cloves into it until you can't fit any more in. Make sure there's loads of butter in there too and all over its skin. One pack of decent butter should suffice.
You can eat the cloves whole when it's done
 
Orang Utan said:
My favourite method is to use a few heads of garlic and shove whole cloves into it until you can't fit any more in. Make sure there's loads of butter in there too and all over its skin. One pack of decent butter should suffice.
You can eat the cloves whole when it's done
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You're sgusting, but I'd go with that.
 
Cid said:
Have you got a meat thermometer? Chicken is amazing cooked longer at a really low temp... Problem is it can be tricky judging oven temp. On my mum's I do it a bit under 100c for 3 hours or so, but usually end up having to turn it up a bit. You want to get it to a core temp of 70c or so and hold it there. Think I got it off Heston, who does it to 60c, but I'm a bit more wary. This is his recipe actually. Lemon up arse. I don't usually brine (largely because roast chicken tends to be a last minute roast choice for me), but it works well anyway - really lovely, juicy, tender meat. Also not as rigorous with the resting time. Whether you use anything from that or not, the tip about taking off the trussing is a good one - cooks evenly.

Oh, and you don't get much gravy doing that (stays in the chicken), so it helps to have a butcher who'll set you some bones, or you can buy some legs and roast them for some other dish. And blast it at the end to get it crisp. The crispiness in chicken skin really doesn't take long and is not at all hard - just high temp as quick as possible.
Click to expand...

We have a small unpredictable gas cooker and no thermometer :(
 
If its still tar same cookery up there then its similar to.ours... Just cook it on 5. About twenty mins before its done. Take thread foil off that'll get it to crisp up
 
Here's a recipe for the dish I mentioned, chicken with 40 cloves of garlic.
http://www.nigella.com/recipes/view/roasted-chicken-with-40-cloves-of-garlic-3496
I shove more garlic up its bum though. Much more.
The roasted cloves are sweet and not as strong (obviously) as chopped garlic - they're fucking delicious.
If you have to use Lurpak, hold back on the salt.
I recommend President, adding salt to the skin.
 
If you can't do it slow bear in mind that a lot of people (recipe books included) overestimate the cooking times (hence why it so often comes out dry and disappointing). Let the bird get to room temp, remove the trussing and pull the legs apart a bit (not completely pull them apart, just so that stuffs not touching stuff iyswim).
 
MrsDarlingsKiss said:
If its still tar same cookery up there then its similar to.ours... Just cook it on 5. About twenty mins before its done. Take thread foil off that'll get it to crisp up
Click to expand...

Oh shit we don't have foil.
Will see if my brain will let me out tomorrow to go get some.
 
Cid said:
If you can't do it slow bear in mind that a lot of people (recipe books included) overestimate the cooking times (hence why it so often comes out dry and disappointing). Let the bird get to room temp, remove the trussing and pull the legs apart a bit (not completely pull them apart, just so that stuffs not touching stuff iyswim).
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Thanks.
I never know whether to take the elastic off before or after :oops:
 
Always firmly roll lemons and limes before use, crushes the cell walls and releases the juices. Goes double for drinks.
 
DotCommunist said:
the best bit about roast chickens is raiding the carcass for chiken and mayo sarnies the next day

'I was saving that to make curry and stock!'

'unlucky'
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Even after you've picked all the decent meat off the carcass you can still boil up the bones for soup. There's always more meat on a chicken somewhere.

As for roasting, I usually just cook the fucker for as long as the bacofoil box says you should. Half a lemon up the bum as noted elsewhere, a couple of strips of bacon on top and then loosely cover with foil before putting it in the oven. The foil comes of half an hour or so before the bird is done cooking.

I don't usually bother with butter or oil, maybe just a little bit of salt rubbed into the skin, the real trick is to keep basting the meat with its own juice every twenty minutes or so.

Incidentally, your lemon half should be placed in the chicken cut side up, so as not to make the chicken too lemony.
 
Threads like this make me realise that I actually miss cooking meat more than I miss eating it.
 
SpookyFrank said:
The foil comes of half an hour or so before the bird is done cooking.
Click to expand...

This is on low temps I take it? I'd rather keep it on slow and low til 99% cooked through and then take it out while the oven was cranked up to the max before you put it back in for crisping up the skin.
 
SpookyFrank said:
Even after you've picked all the decent meat off the carcass you can still boil up the bones for soup. There's always more meat on a chicken somewhere.
Click to expand...



this recalls the roasting of lamb bones for the dog

'Oh that smells fuckin lush, what are we having'

'nothing, its bones for the dog'


*goes off to kick dog out of principle*
 
TruXta said:
This is on low temps I take it? I'd rather keep it on slow and low til 99% cooked through and then take it out while the oven was cranked up to the max before you put it back in for crisping up the skin.
Click to expand...

I'd usually give it the last twenty minutes without foil on a higher heat. The hotter oven is good for your roast potatoes as well so it all works out nicely.
 
These are all cool but mainly only change the flavour of the bird.

For me, put your oven on its lowest setting, very lowest (well below boiling). Cook the chicken for 4 hours uncovered, take it out. Put oven on highest setting, when it's hot (a good 10 minutes btw) season and oil the skin and put it back in until it's perfect...sight is all you need but don't check more than every 3 minutes or so, you need to keep the temperature as high as possible for a short period - baste it at least twice (shut the oven door!). Perfectly moist on the inside, crispy and brown on the outside.

All that other stuff can be done in the gravy.
 
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Already said that dexter, already said that. Although 4 hours is probably more realistic than 3. Also I'm with you on the taking the chicken out while the oven gets really hot thing... Used to do turn heat up high and leave for 20 minutes+, but it just dries it out.
 
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