Keith_W ultimate roast chicken

Keith_W

Well-Known Member
Mar 31, 2012
1,024
95
970
Melbourne, Australia
www.whatsbestforum.com
I have had a number of requests in my Xmas thread and via PM for the recipe, so here it is.

Development and concept
Bear with me for this preamble. I will discuss recipes you find in cookbooks which I have tried, and I will explain why they don't work.

If you look at a number of roast chicken recipes in cookbooks, you will find a bewildering number of methods. This is because those cookbooks are aimed for the home cook who does not have much time and wants to whip up a quick meal. However, a survey of books by Heston Blumenthal, Thomas Keller, and a number of other top chefs find that they have a number of recommendations in common:

1. The bird must be brined. Brining recipes vary.
2. They recommend a two stage cooking method. First stage is a low temperature roast, followed by a finishing roast for the skin.
3. They recommend cooking to a target temperature.
4. Trussing: some truss, some don't.
5. NO STUFFING. NEVER EVER.

Re: Brining. Most chefs recommend diffusion brining, which is where you immerse your bird in a bucket of salt water and leave it in the fridge for a number of hours. The idea is that the salt directly alters the charge between the actin/myosin (muscle molecules) and makes it more tender. It also helps the chicken retain moisture during cooking, and seasons the meat. This is why brining is a good idea. However, the downside of diffusion brining is that it (1) takes a long time, (2) takes up space in the fridge, (3) also brines the skin - which means that the skin will also hold on to water and will have trouble getting crispy, and (4) large flavour molecules have a hard time penetrating the chicken.

This is why I do not recommend diffusion brining. Instead, I use injection brining. The advantages are: (1) it works much faster, (2) takes up less space, (3) does not brine the skin, and (4) you can introduce different flavours.

Re: stuffing. Nearly all top chefs recommend that birds should not be stuffed, e.g. Cooking Issues. The reason is because it increases the risk of food poisoning due to the lengthy time it takes for the stuffing to reach a safe temperature.

Re: trussing. The problem with most methods of trussing is that the part of chicken that needs a higher cooking temperature (the thighs and legs) are made even thicker with trussing. There is a new way of trussing chicken that leaves the legs exposed and hanging out, which I recommend you read: Chefsteps Best Way to Truss a Chicken.

Re: two stage cooking. Think about cooking this way: you aim to bring your chicken up to a target temperature (in this case, 60C for the breast, 65C for the thighs and drumstick). If you use a single stage high heat cooking method, your window of opportunity to remove the chicken and avoid overcooking is shorter. On top of that, as the chicken cooks, its rate of heat absorption actually increases. The reason why is that as the skin starts to brown, it absorbs more heat via infra-red radiation. This shortens your window of opportunity even further.

Re: how to buy a good chicken. You want free range, wild foraged chicken, and slow grown. This means the chicken runs around a yard and is free to pick its own grubs from the dirt. Commercial chicken is barn raised, and grows very quickly. This ensures more tender meat, more profit and consistency of product, but it is lacking in flavour. A true free range chicken has tougher but more flavoursome meat. We will tenderize the chicken through injection brining. Here in Melbourne, I buy Milking Yard Farm chickens, which is a heritage breed, French Bresse-style free range chicken.

In this recipe, we are going to take advantage of injection brining by first making a roast chicken stock, and injecting it into another bird before roasting. This is by no means an easy recipe, but it follows "best practice" from gleaning together tips from many sources.

Equipment Needed
- Digital instant read thermometer, I use a Thermapen
- Marinade injector like this.
- Rotisserie for your oven
- Pressure cooker
- Digital weighing scale

Recipe
- 2kg (4.4lb) free range, unbrined chicken. In Australia, brined chicken is sold as "self basting". Do not buy a bird like this.
- 1.5kg (3.3lb) chicken necks
- 500gm (1.1lb) onion, diced
- 250gm (0.55lb) carrot, diced
- 250gm (0.55lb) celery, diced
- Bouquet garni (thyme, parsley, bay leaf)
- Milk
- Water, salt, pepper

Method
- First, make the roast chicken stock. Roast the chicken necks in an oven at 180C (355F) until nicely browned. Put it in the pressure cooker with the onion, carrot, celery, and bouquet garni, and pressure cook at full pressure for 2 hours. Strain the stock, discarding the solids. Then reduce the stock by 50%.

- Prepare your chicken. Remove the wishbone and french the drumsticks. Removing the wishbone makes it easier to carve, and frenching the drumsticks makes the bird look more attractive if you are serving it whole.

- Prepare your chicken skin. Pre-cooking the skin helps the skin crisp up later, and sterilizes the bird. Bring a large stock pot of water to the boil (large enough to submerge the bird). Pass a length of kitchen twine through the cavity and tie it together. This helps you lower the bird into the pot and retrieve it. Fill your sink with water and ice. Plunge the bird into the boiling water for 30 seconds, then plunge into the ice water mixture. Thoroughly blot dry with kitchen paper.

- Calculate how much brine you need. You will need 20% the weight of the bird in brine. For a 2kg chicken, this means 400mL brine. Make up your brine with 75% reduced stock, and 25% milk (i.e. 300mL stock, 100mL milk). The reason for the milk: it adds phosphate into the mix, and phosphate exerts a tenderizing effect over and above a simple brine. (Source: Modernist Cuisine)

- Add enough salt so you have a 3% brine (i.e. 3gm of salt per 100mL of liquid). For 400mL, add (3*4) = 12gm of salt. Stir to dissolve well.

- Place your chicken on a grill rack over a grill pan. Inject your brine into your chicken. Watch this Youtube video:


- Brine will drip out of the chicken. Suck up the extra brine from the grill pan and re-inject it into the chicken. Repeat until you have very little brine left.

- Blot the skin thoroughly dry.

- Paint the skin with soy sauce. The idea is that this darkens the skin and helps produce a nice brown chicken once cooking is finished. At this stage, your chicken should look like this (the chicken in this photo was brushed with a mixture of soy sauce and smoked paprika). Note how plump it looks once it has been injected:



- Leave the chicken in the fridge for a minimum of 12 hours and up to 3 days to thoroughly dry out the skin.

- Truss the chicken to a rotisserie using the Chefsteps method. The rotisserie is by far the best way to cook a chicken, because as the chicken rotates, so do the juices. It doesn't have time to pool in one part of the chicken.

- Set your oven to 70C (160F) and roast on the rotisserie until the breast reaches 60C (140F). This will take about 4-5 hours depending on the size of the bird. Once done, check the internal temperature with a probe thermometer. Push it as deep as it will go until it hits bone, then withdraw it a little. The breast should be 60C (140F), and the thighs 65C (150F). This will produce bones which are still a little bloody. Don't worry, it is safe to eat. It is well and truly pasteurized. If the colour puts you off, aim for a higher target temperature - 65C (150F) for breast, and 70C (158F) for thighs. This WILL make your chicken more dry and less tender though!

- Remove from the oven and rest for one hour.

- While waiting, use the reserved chicken stock to make a sauce. The choice is up to you, but I like the complexity of Sauce Ravigote. I usually omit the boiled egg that the recipe calls for to make a lighter sauce.

- Crank your oven to the maximum it will go. Baste the skin with drippings, cover the exposed frenched drumsticks with foil, then put the bird back in the rotisserie. Roast until the skin is golden, about 5-10 min depending on your oven. Remember that browning of the skin is exponential (darker skin = more heat absorption via IR!). So once it starts to brown, keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn't burn!

- Rest 10 minutes then carve.

Result:

 
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JackD201

WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
12,308
1,425
1,820
Manila, Philippines
I know this might be weird questions Keith but what type of syringe would you recommend and roughly how many mils per "shot"? Are the shots at differing depths in the meat too?
 

Keith_W

Well-Known Member
Mar 31, 2012
1,024
95
970
Melbourne, Australia
www.whatsbestforum.com
I typed up an answer earlier but I lost it.

What type of syringe, it needs two features.

1. A long needle with side infusion ports. This lets you push the needle deeper into the bird and get more even distribution of brine.
2. Metal cylinder. I bought one with a plastic cylinder and it broke after a few uses. I threw it away and bought a similar marinade injector as the one I linked to on Amazon.

How much do I inject, I sort of wing it. As a rough guide:

- 40% into the breasts (10% front left, 10% front right, 10% rear left, etc...)
- 40% into the thighs and drumsticks (15% left thigh, 5% left drum, etc...)
- 10% into wings (5% left, 5% right)
- 10% everywhere else

The breasts tend to leak more brine than other parts of the chicken. So, with the brine that drips out of the chicken into the pan, put most of it back into the breasts.
 

Addicted to hifi

VIP/Donor
Sep 8, 2020
4,610
2,039
265
52
Australia
I have had a number of requests in my Xmas thread and via PM for the recipe, so here it is.

Development and concept
Bear with me for this preamble. I will discuss recipes you find in cookbooks which I have tried, and I will explain why they don't work.

If you look at a number of roast chicken recipes in cookbooks, you will find a bewildering number of methods. This is because those cookbooks are aimed for the home cook who does not have much time and wants to whip up a quick meal. However, a survey of books by Heston Blumenthal, Thomas Keller, and a number of other top chefs find that they have a number of recommendations in common:

1. The bird must be brined. Brining recipes vary.
2. They recommend a two stage cooking method. First stage is a low temperature roast, followed by a finishing roast for the skin.
3. They recommend cooking to a target temperature.
4. Trussing: some truss, some don't.
5. NO STUFFING. NEVER EVER.

Re: Brining. Most chefs recommend diffusion brining, which is where you immerse your bird in a bucket of salt water and leave it in the fridge for a number of hours. The idea is that the salt directly alters the charge between the actin/myosin (muscle molecules) and makes it more tender. It also helps the chicken retain moisture during cooking, and seasons the meat. This is why brining is a good idea. However, the downside of diffusion brining is that it (1) takes a long time, (2) takes up space in the fridge, (3) also brines the skin - which means that the skin will also hold on to water and will have trouble getting crispy, and (4) large flavour molecules have a hard time penetrating the chicken.

This is why I do not recommend diffusion brining. Instead, I use injection brining. The advantages are: (1) it works much faster, (2) takes up less space, (3) does not brine the skin, and (4) you can introduce different flavours.

Re: stuffing. Nearly all top chefs recommend that birds should not be stuffed, e.g. Cooking Issues. The reason is because it increases the risk of food poisoning due to the lengthy time it takes for the stuffing to reach a safe temperature.

Re: trussing. The problem with most methods of trussing is that the part of chicken that needs a higher cooking temperature (the thighs and legs) are made even thicker with trussing. There is a new way of trussing chicken that leaves the legs exposed and hanging out, which I recommend you read: Chefsteps Best Way to Truss a Chicken.

Re: two stage cooking. Think about cooking this way: you aim to bring your chicken up to a target temperature (in this case, 60C for the breast, 65C for the thighs and drumstick). If you use a single stage high heat cooking method, your window of opportunity to remove the chicken and avoid overcooking is shorter. On top of that, as the chicken cooks, its rate of heat absorption actually increases. The reason why is that as the skin starts to brown, it absorbs more heat via infra-red radiation. This shortens your window of opportunity even further.

Re: how to buy a good chicken. You want free range, wild foraged chicken, and slow grown. This means the chicken runs around a yard and is free to pick its own grubs from the dirt. Commercial chicken is barn raised, and grows very quickly. This ensures more tender meat, more profit and consistency of product, but it is lacking in flavour. A true free range chicken has tougher but more flavoursome meat. We will tenderize the chicken through injection brining. Here in Melbourne, I buy Milking Yard Farm chickens, which is a heritage breed, French Bresse-style free range chicken.

In this recipe, we are going to take advantage of injection brining by first making a roast chicken stock, and injecting it into another bird before roasting. This is by no means an easy recipe, but it follows "best practice" from gleaning together tips from many sources.

Equipment Needed
- Digital instant read thermometer, I use a Thermapen
- Marinade injector like this.
- Rotisserie for your oven
- Pressure cooker
- Digital weighing scale

Recipe
- 2kg (4.4lb) free range, unbrined chicken. In Australia, brined chicken is sold as "self basting". Do not buy a bird like this.
- 1.5kg (3.3lb) chicken necks
- 500gm (1.1lb) onion, diced
- 250gm (0.55lb) carrot, diced
- 250gm (0.55lb) celery, diced
- Bouquet garni (thyme, parsley, bay leaf)
- Milk
- Water, salt, pepper

Method
- First, make the roast chicken stock. Roast the chicken necks in an oven at 180C (355F) until nicely browned. Put it in the pressure cooker with the onion, carrot, celery, and bouquet garni, and pressure cook at full pressure for 2 hours. Strain the stock, discarding the solids. Then reduce the stock by 50%.

- Prepare your chicken. Remove the wishbone and french the drumsticks. Removing the wishbone makes it easier to carve, and frenching the drumsticks makes the bird look more attractive if you are serving it whole.

- Prepare your chicken skin. Pre-cooking the skin helps the skin crisp up later, and sterilizes the bird. Bring a large stock pot of water to the boil (large enough to submerge the bird). Pass a length of kitchen twine through the cavity and tie it together. This helps you lower the bird into the pot and retrieve it. Fill your sink with water and ice. Plunge the bird into the boiling water for 30 seconds, then plunge into the ice water mixture. Thoroughly blot dry with kitchen paper.

- Calculate how much brine you need. You will need 20% the weight of the bird in brine. For a 2kg chicken, this means 400mL brine. Make up your brine with 75% reduced stock, and 25% milk (i.e. 300mL stock, 100mL milk). The reason for the milk: it adds phosphate into the mix, and phosphate exerts a tenderizing effect over and above a simple brine. (Source: Modernist Cuisine)

- Add enough salt so you have a 3% brine (i.e. 3gm of salt per 100mL of liquid). For 400mL, add (3*4) = 12gm of salt. Stir to dissolve well.

- Place your chicken on a grill rack over a grill pan. Inject your brine into your chicken. Watch this Youtube video:


- Brine will drip out of the chicken. Suck up the extra brine from the grill pan and re-inject it into the chicken. Repeat until you have very little brine left.

- Blot the skin thoroughly dry.

- Paint the skin with soy sauce. The idea is that this darkens the skin and helps produce a nice brown chicken once cooking is finished. At this stage, your chicken should look like this (the chicken in this photo was brushed with a mixture of soy sauce and smoked paprika). Note how plump it looks once it has been injected:



- Leave the chicken in the fridge for a minimum of 12 hours and up to 3 days to thoroughly dry out the skin.

- Truss the chicken to a rotisserie using the Chefsteps method. The rotisserie is by far the best way to cook a chicken, because as the chicken rotates, so do the juices. It doesn't have time to pool in one part of the chicken.

- Set your oven to 70C (160F) and roast on the rotisserie until the breast reaches 60C (140F). This will take about 4-5 hours depending on the size of the bird. Once done, check the internal temperature with a probe thermometer. Push it as deep as it will go until it hits bone, then withdraw it a little. The breast should be 60C (140F), and the thighs 65C (150F). This will produce bones which are still a little bloody. Don't worry, it is safe to eat. It is well and truly pasteurized. If the colour puts you off, aim for a higher target temperature - 65C (150F) for breast, and 70C (158F) for thighs. This WILL make your chicken more dry and less tender though!

- Remove from the oven and rest for one hour.

- While waiting, use the reserved chicken stock to make a sauce. The choice is up to you, but I like the complexity of Sauce Ravigote. I usually omit the boiled egg that the recipe calls for to make a lighter sauce.

- Crank your oven to the maximum it will go. Baste the skin with drippings, cover the exposed frenched drumsticks with foil, then put the bird back in the rotisserie. Roast until the skin is golden, about 5-10 min depending on your oven. Remember that browning of the skin is exponential (darker skin = more heat absorption via IR!). So once it starts to brown, keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn't burn!

- Rest 10 minutes then carve.

Result:

looks delicious And cooked to perfection.
 

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