The Great Roast Chicken Trials

For various reasons (farmers' market not in season, all the other reasons why one should avoid eating too much red meat), we've been eating more chicken lately. There have recently been a couple of intriguing takes on the roast chicken in Cook's, so I decided to try them, along with the method I used to use when I had a great farmers' market source for poultry, and decide which one we liked best.

The first method was for French roast chicken in a pot--the perfect opportunity to use the robin's egg blue Martha Stewart Collection enameled cast iron dutch oven I got for Christmas. Before I had even tried the other methods, I was leaning toward choosing this one as the default, because it's dead easy.

French Roast Chicken in a Pot

4.5-5.5 lb chicken
kosher salt and fresh-ground black pepper
1 T olive oil
1 med onion, chopped medium
1 rib celery, chopped medium
3 cloves garlic, peeled
1 sprig rosemary

Preheat oven to 250. Remove giblets from chicken, pat dry, and season with salt and pepper. Bring oil to just smoking over medium-high heat in dutch oven (mine is 7.5 qt). Add chicken, breast side down, and put vegetables and rosemary (I think I'll try thyme next time) in pot around it. Brown well, then flip over and brown the backside, stirring veggies occasionally. Then cover with foil and put the lid on (Cook's says the foil helps create a tighter seal), and pop in the oven for 80-110 minutes, until the chicken is 160 in the breast and 175 in the thigh.

Like I said, dead easy. It was also deliciously moist. Cook's says to strain the veggies out of the exuded juices, degrease, add a little lemon juice and serve alongside the chicken, but I skipped this. I did strain and degrease the juices (about a cup), but I saved them to add to the stock I plan on making in a few days.

The next trial was of Crisp-Skinned Roast Chicken, from the March-April 2008 Cook's. From the get-go this one has a disadvantage in that it requires some advance prep, always hard for me to remember to do (I ended up doing it at about 1 am last night--definitely not ideal). But it promised ultra-crisp skin, which I knew would be a big hit with Number One.

Crisp-Skinned Roast Chicken

3.5-4.5 lb chicken
1 T kosher salt
1 t baking powder
1/2 t ground black pepper

Combine dry ingredients in a small bowl. Pat chicken dry. Using a sharp paring knife, cut four one-inch slits in the back skin of the chicken (alongside the spine). Use your finger or a wooden spoon handle to loosen the skin, front and back and legs. Then flip it over and use a skewer to poke 15-20 holes in the skin of the breasts and drumsticks. Pat dry again. Sprinkle salt mixture over bird and rub it in with your hands. Put chicken in roasting rack in pan (they say rimmed cookie sheet, but frankly my roasting pan is smaller) and refrigerate, uncovered, 12-24 hours.

Put oven rack on lowest position and preheat oven to 450. Tear off a sheet of foil big enough to mostly cover the bottom of your roasting pan, and poke holes in it with a paring knife about 1.5 inches apart. Put the foil loosely in the pan, and put the rack on top of it. Flip chicken breast side down, and roast for 25 minutes.

Take pan out of oven and flip chicken onto its back (they say to use wads of paper towels, but I used my turkey-flipping forks and they worked just great). Put it back in the oven and roast until the breast is 135 degrees, about 15-25 minutes.

Increase oven temperature to 500 degrees, and roast until the skin is brown and crisp, and the temperature is 160 in the breast and 175 in the thigh, 10-20 minutes. Transfer chicken to cutting board and let rest, uncovered, 20 minutes, then serve.

Once again, we had a deliciously juicy chicken. I wasn't blown away by the skin, though. Yes, it was pretty brown and pretty crisp, but there was just the slightest hint of chemical aftertaste from the baking powder, and it was a bit more hands-on and time-consuming in the prep than I would have liked. I haven't fully polled the boys, but I suspect this will not become a regular (since as the cook I have more votes).

Here is the chicken the night before, after rubbing with the salt mixture.



Here it is the next afternoon, after about 16 hours in the fridge drying out.



And here are the remains after we were done eating (sorry no pic of the golden glory!).



I served it with orange and green mashed potatoes (the kale was actually dark purple, not green, and stained the onions in the sauté) and clementines,



and Ganache-Filled and Frosted Cupcakes for dessert. Yum.