Go to the Article: The Ultimate Guide to Roast Chicken
Looks excellent, I can't wait to try it out, thank you. Do you have any comment on basting during first initial cook?
yea, no basting. that first slow and low cook is also trying to dry the skin up.
I loved the first ultimate Chicken Recipe! Going to try this one immediately. Does the searing process smoke as much as the first Ultimate Roast Chicken Recipe? And if so do you have any recommendations on combating the smoke (other than taking down the smoke alarms)?
Totally different topic: Could you put a turkey through the same process?
same old smoking problem with this one...
Not something we tried, but would assume in principal it should work, but that would need a pretty big oven. And the first roast and cool down times are going to take a bit longer.
I love low and slow cooking. However, with the first recipe, I had a lot of trouble hitting the dual temps of higher for thigh, lower for breasts. The oven temp was so even that the whole bird cooked...evenly.
Hence, a lot of my whole bird cooking happens with either spatchcocking or cooking with asymmetrical heat source (cooking on top of hot baking steep in lower temp oven. How do you recommend getting around this issue?
Sorry, one more question. Can you comment on the dry-brining (+/- baking powder on skin) that the SE crew loves so much (vs wet / injection). You've obviously spent a lot of time and thought on this, so I imagine you've thought this through well
Hi Wes, were you cooking your bird hanging or on a stand like we show? when the bird is stretched out like this the thighs are a bit thinner than when they are just laying down. that helps them cook faster than the thick breasts. if you haven't tried yet even the image we have above with the beer can style stand should help with this.
No problem, Wes, we are here to help! When it came to dry brining, we were just ending up with leathery skin. But the only method we used the baking powder with was during the poach, and we had some mixed results. We achieved the texture we were looking for but at the levels of baking soda required it ended up with a very negative affect on the flavor. We just found that any salt added to the skin took away from us achieving the puffing action we were in search of.
What is your position on separating the skin manually from the meat so that the chicken is wearing a 'skin suit'. CS' peking duck recipe does this:
"Now sh*t’s going to get a little crazy—in a good way. Essentially, what we’re trying to do here is separate the skin from the flesh. Why? Well, the enemy of crispy skin is water. If the skin remains attached to the flesh, the moist, juicy meat will quickly wet the crispy skin. (This is why roast chicken skin goes soggy so quickly after it comes out of the oven.) But when we use compressed air to separate the flesh from the skin, it becomes easier to dry out the skin during roasting and keep it that way, since the skin is no longer tightly attached to the flesh. And yes, it’s a great move when you’re roasting a chicken as well."
I can't remember, but I'll definitely try it this time like that
Right, we tried this too! But you just don’t have that fat layer like the duck has. The skin will separate from the fat and the fat stays attached to the flesh. This isn’t the case with the chicken—you don't get that air gap.
There are so many 'best roast chicken' takes out there with different tricks (baking powder skin, separate out skin, spatchcock or not, baste or not). I would love to see (at some point) more explanation of what things DIDN'T work (like you skin separation answer), as the recipe world is full of so many different voices on roast chicken.
FWIW, have done this with a small Turkey (10lb), though had to pour boiling water on the skin repeatedly instead of blanching whole and the fridge time was limited to 3 days (not 7) as it was based off the old roast chicken recipe. Took longer (obviously). Still excellent results.
Previously have done 20-30 second blanches X 3 then into ice. 5 min doesn't penetrate the flesh?? I'm pretty sure I know what you're going to say, but pardon me while my head does the twisted puppy dog look. :-)
If I clear out my mini fridge and put a few pc fans in with the bird, do you think that would be enough airflow?
For the final roasting, keen for a view adding infrared to convection heat. My indoor convection oven gets me to ~250/260c and the chickens finish nicely, however I've been trying to get more in terms of crispiness as well as finished flavour by putting them on rotisserie on the grill. All four burners + infrared back burner gets the temps up around 300c ambient plus the infrared temp hitting the skin on rotisserie. Anyone else tried this? The results on the skin are very different - one is more like your charcoal chicken (but 1000% better flesh), the oven one is more like what's pictured here.
Hi Todd, For this one we avoided the ice bath shock to specifically aid in the steaming and drying out of the skin as it cools down in the fridge. The heat that is carrying over from the blanch is helping accelerate the air drying.
Thank you for checking this and responding!
this is not a bad way to "dry age" beef at home as well.
Did you try baking soda or baking powder? According to Kenji, the former would add a metallic flavor:
https://www.seriouseats.com/2016/10/how-to-get-crispier-chicken-turkey-poultry-skin-with-baking-powder.html
we used baking powder. it ended up tasting and smelling like ramen water.
I think so. if you are in need of more air flow you can always throw a small batterie powered fan in there as well, and a couple of silica packets
sorry but how can you possibly keep a chicken once opened in the fridge for 7 day?? in the uk the use by date would not allow, also once opened health authority rules state use with 3 days!!!
when you take the step to blanch it you are effectively killing any bacteria on the external skin and in the cavity. Also once you hang to dry you are replicating what happens with dry aged beef, at 7 days we were good. But like we state in the activity you must have good air flow to dry the skin, if it stays moist it can spoil. I personally tested this, with over 70 chickens, and not once had spoilage or got sick. we also did them for up to two weeks, no spoilage but got to dried out for a good result. Thanks for your question Roland, let me know if I can help with any others.
How do you suggest we hang a chicken in a residential fridge and oven? I would love to try this, but I'm not sure how to execute the hanging at home. Thanks! Looks great!
the image up top here of the chicken in the roasting section is done in a home oven and home fridge with out hanging. The quarter sheet tray and rack were used with a hanger to make a stand that holds the chicken up right. You can also find vertical turkey roasters on amazon that work as well.
In RATIONAL, what fan setting do you suggest? Doing up a turkey for the lunar new year!
this might be a little late for you... but we would recommend following the same steps as above.. but stop the slow cook at 140f and let it cool before the high temp roast.
The link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/ultimate-roast-chicken-v2 is broken.
yeah 5 minutes seems like a long time?
@Kyl Haselbauer I have an outdoor 4 gallon deep fryer. Have you experimented with deep fry for final step? I’m interested in as little hot oven use as possible this week in Washington!
ohh yea that will work. Follow the same steps and replace the final roast with the fry. We just did not include that in the recipe for safety issues.
Hey Kyl, thanks for the detailed recipe. Quick question, I noticed that you used a Rational oven for cooking, I'm assuming you had it set to 0% steam? I recently bought the anova steam oven which can go pretty low and slow (and add steam), curious if you'd recommend any steam for the first part or just leave it at zero?
Hello Ray, Kyl is on vacation this week. The Rational Combi Oven was set with 0% humidity. I would recommend leaving at 0. All that time to dry out the skin would be reversed.
Hi Kyl, can I make the same recipe for a turkey?
If you have a big enough oven to hang the turkey it should work. times and temperatures will be a bit different.
I just don't get this. For me, after seven days, the meat became totally dry. I'm using a 3.5 pound bird and after that time drying the skin, so does the meat. help!
Hi Chris, the meat is essentially raw, and brine injected so that time would not be adding to the meat being "dry". The steps where it can dry out are during the slow roasting phase and the hot roasting. Did you monitor the temperatures? If so, would you let me know what the highest temps you hit on the breast were?. Thanks.
Do you think porchetta could be improved by following the same series of steps in your updated ultimate roast chicken recipe?
how would I do this on a Traeger?
I just started a roast chicken for tonight. I've been looking at the email heading since yesterday....thinking, how could you possibly do this better, different from the standard chicken roast. I wish I had looked at this yesterday, and had salmon tonight. Question: We have a standard type refrigerator which we can probably work the contents into a usable configuration. We also have a walk-in refrigerator, that at best will be at 50 degrees. Lots of room and plenty of air movement. We use this for fruits, vegetables, and a temporary holding station for wine/beer, soft drinks. Will the walk-in be safe for the chicken?
